


The Expansion of the Botmother

by mydarksidelovesthis



Series: Botmother [1]
Category: The Expanse (TV), Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: (But doesn't admit it), Action, Allspark, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Future, Arena, Bayverse AU, Blood, Bureaucracy, Ceres, Cybertron, Decepticon, Decepticon Radio, Dirty Fighting, Donnager, Fights, Flashbacks, Future, Future Fic, Gen, Humor, Lies, Lockdown is Badass, Mars, Megatron likes Babies, Near Future, Olympus Mons, Original Character(s), POV First Person, POV Original Female Character, Pain, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Science Experiments, Science Fiction, Spaceships, Starscream is Evil Prankster Villain, Virtual Reality, not evil just misunderstood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2020-10-04 03:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 85,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20464313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydarksidelovesthis/pseuds/mydarksidelovesthis
Summary: After merging with the Allspark and being kidnapped by the Decepticons to Cybertron, Seldra alias "Botmother" escaped and makes her way back to Earth. Meanwhile Humankind has spread to Mars. Where are the Decepticons now and why is the human civilisation filled with Cybertronian technology?





	1. PART I - Ceres 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Die Expansion der Botmutter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19942846) by [mydarksidelovesthis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydarksidelovesthis/pseuds/mydarksidelovesthis). 

> Dear Reader,
> 
> there is a clear difference betwen reality and simulation. If you figure it out, please keep it to yourself or else Megatron will wipe out your entire species.
> 
> Kind regards  
My Truthful Side Loves This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra lands on Ceres.

I was standing at the river again, back in the evening, which would be my last one in my normal life. The coming night painted the world in twilight. A rough wind was blowing over the water. I watched the lighting that struck in the dark clouds over the city, but this was no ordinary thunderstorm. From time to time with disbelief I saw something like giant robots fighting with each other appearing between the clouds and disappearing into them again. I could not take my eyes away from them and tried to find a logical explanation for what I saw and what couldn't be. Every time they disappeared I considered them to be a hallucination caused by the lightning and the clouds, but then they appeared again and they looked so real.

A heavy impact tells me to pay attention to reality and I leave the simulation. My sensors show that there is no oxygen outside of my capsule. Where am I? According to my calculations I should be in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Somehow I hoped for a miracle and that I would just pass them. Well, then I have to cope with this.

With the help of my database and some more calculations I search for the biggest object nearby - it's Ceres. I could be there in some weeks - too bad the impact took my velocity. Ceres does not have much own gravity. I cannot use it to get back to my previous speed, but at least I could cut my travel time to Earth for a bit. I transform to my bot mode - I hate how I look like this, how it suppresses my feelings and changes my thoughts and most of all in this my energy signature reveals my position, which is otherwise covered by my human flesh. I cut it short: I expose my jet engines, accelerate towards Ceres on a calculated flight path - no surprises this time - and transform back to capsule mode.

In my capsule mode my human flesh is in hibernation and needs neither food nor sleep. I entertain myself with simulations and bring myself back to Cybertron. Like so often. 

"Do you see that?"

We were standing at the edge of a metal street - how needless to say, as everything here was made from metal - below that were several hundred feet of nothing before the next level of the city with its own streets and buildings and more abysses - I got scared of the depth and I stayed in respectful distance from the edge. But it was no pretty metal, it was dull and ugly. 

Many of the houses and streets had rust stains. Beside me stood a thirty feet high, gray, humanoid robot. He pointed to a district which was decayed a lot. Under its own weight the building had sinked into itself, pulling down the streets it was supposed to support and bending them down to the next level. Only the rusty streets kept the leaning building from collapsing. 

With red eyes - I meant with red optical sensors - the robot looked at me. "This is all your fault. Now give me the cube, so I can limit the damage."

"I ... I cannot." And a bit quieter: "Also I don't see why I would even try if you're destroying my home afterwards."

"I don't allow any protest!", he shouted in anger, grabbed me and threw me away.

I flew in a high curve, passing destroyed streets and buildings.

Immediately before the impact, which would have smashed my human body, a new survival instinct awakened inside of me and I transformed to bot mode - I should call it "con mode", but I refused to call myself a Decepticon. Metal shrouded my human body, formed long claws and legs with ankle joints - that had turned out useful at this place. Because I ran on four legs which was faster I grew a long tail for balance.

Megatron had thrown me into the arena for punishment, which was a big hall whose roof had been collapsed and now lied around in pieces. Before the walls was the space for the audience - inclined ramps lead from the entrances up to the huge stairs, so Cons of any shape and size could enter and take a seat. A Decepticon a bit bigger than me already awaited me with pulled out sword and attacked me.

It was an unequal fight. I had no weapons, no jet engines, no special features. I crouched down onto four legs to dodge an attack, jumped away and ran around him. At least that gave me some time to make up a plan. Too bad I was totally uninspired.

Finally the Con chased me - how could I have missed that? - into a corner and beat me up, dented my case and damaged my mechanics, until I had lost control over my machine body. At least I did not feel much pain at all compared to the damage. It was nothing for a Cybertronian. Then he stopped. They all were ordered to let me live.

Totally numbed I partly gained back consciousness when they dragged me over the streets. Like from far away I heard Megatron's voice with disgust: "You cannot even stand against my lowest subject. You are begging that I spare the life of worms. They're worth nothing compared to us. I don't let your egoism endanger the survival of my species. To the Doc."

They dragged me to the "laboratory" of the Doctor, a room full of scrap of a knee-high Con, who ran around on six legs like a disgusting insect.

"Onto the table with her" he ordered and the two other Cons left the cabin. Contrary to his name his job was not to repair me - my health, the physical integrity of my machine body didn't matter to him.

"How are you?" he asked and ran over me with his stinging legs - without touching me, but the thought alone made me cringe - and ripped off some parts. "Totally destroyed!"

To get some expressive measurements I tried to wake up my human body from hibernation and it responded with pain, so I let it sleep. My human body was heavily injured, but alive. It was not possible for me to transform to human mode when I was too much injured. I thought that was creepy and I wondered what it looked like if my human body would die. Would my sensors measure the data of rotting flesh ... 

"Could be better" I finally answered his question. Only because I knew he didn't care.

"Shut up" he replied and started to connect some cables to my upper body. "Here, make yourself useful and put your measurements onto the screen."

He wanted to have an eye on my life functions, so he wouldn't accidentally kill me before they had gained the Allspark. I did him this favor. Because robots didn't sleep and I couldn't stand watching him tinkering with my body I switched off my outer sensors and fed a simulation into my human brain, to keep it busy like in a dream.

When after the next impact I pay attention again to the present I wonder - oxygen? An atmosphere and temperature suitable for humans? I transform to human mode and marvel at the mile of stone and metal above me, tunnels and tubes which I damaged by my landing, clearly human. Only in far distance above me I see a dark stain which could be the sky. How is that possible? Hm, my clock says that after my escape from Cybertron over 300 years have passed. So long ... It looks as if humans meanwhile had personally reached the belt. Well, in that case I don't need to fly to Earth by myself, but I can comfortably travel by spaceship.

I try to get up, but my muscles haven't reached operating temperature yet - I move them as well as I can to speed up heating. Quick, I already hear voices from people above, inspecting the damage I have caused. And the fizzling of leaking oxygen. I pull some debris away from me and scratch myself at a tube which sticks out of the "wall". Quickly I force myself into the next gap and bugger off crawling, before anyone finds me here and asks displeasing questions.

After some forcing, pulling and running through a door I finally reach the tunnel of a railway system from which I go further and sneak in an unnoticed moment onto the platform. With relieve I note that humans still look like they used to and most of them are as dirty as me, so nobody pays attention to me - on Ceres there is barely enough water I guess. However, I don't understand a word they're saying, maybe just a few. Out of the corner of my eye I see some cameras and try to keep my face away from them, just in case. I reach the "road", where people tightly bustle about between houses with advertising signs and booths.

I am very happy to be back among humans and grin widely. Here I'm normal, everyone ignores me, nobody stares at me. I pretend to look at the goods, but actually I'm looking at the city itself and try to get used to the circumstances. Many people have electronic devices with them - oh, this is only developed human technology like our smart phones from old time, only more fancy with a transparent case and with holograms they could project into the air. It's often used for paying, but coins are also still in use and I see only a few surveillance cameras - good, good.

I step into an electronic store and pretend to be interested in these smart phones. Exited I surf to a music store to marvel at the new cultural achievements and maybe to rediscover some old pearls from Earth - let's see if my scanty reconstructions are very far from the original. But todays music sounds more or less the same as in my days, only more boring. How disappointing.

Then I search for information about the local language - okay, they still use the Latin alphabet and I will get used to this developed kind of English. I open a dictionary about Belter Creole, which is mostly used on Ceres. I find no way to switch off WiFi - whatever this is called today and which technology is behind that - so I have to do it the slow way. I scroll through the complete dictionary and redirect the visual information directly to my internal system, where I store them. Instantly I set my system onto the data to learn the language. Actually my machine parts now learned the language - my brain is still human and very slow in learning compared to that, but because both are well connected it makes no difference. In the same way I acquire the modern variety of English.


	2. Ceres 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra gets used to Ceres and leaves it.

Still totally damaged, but at least able to move I left the lab in bot mode. The Cons were so strong, they stood head and shoulders above me. It was so unfair.

Now I passed the time until my human body had healed enough I could transform back and I scouted Cybertron, under the watchful glances of several Decepticons, who were busy nearby. As long as I didn't try to escape they didn't care for what I did. I visited a building on the lowest level, called "factory" by the common Con. Here the offspring was made.

I went to one of the big pods that grew in this building save and sound, from plants as high as a house and put my servo on it. I understood Energon as some kind of electricity, an energy that the Cybertronians needed to function. Once it came from the ground, but not anymore and the planet decayed. But I had plenty of it and gave some of it to the pod. It opened and a roughly humanoid Con - recognizable because of the red glowing optical sensors and the initial mistrust against me - fell out. After he had stared at me for some seconds he ran away.

Yes, I was aware that these hatchlings one day could be part of the army that raided Earth. That's why I only gave them enough Energon to live, not enough to become strong. I wanted to see what they did. About every tenth Cybertronian was pushed off with blue optical sensors and another tenth reacted less aggressive towards me then the others. I told myself I could do something to keep the peace.

The offspring, a group of nine hatchlings at the moment in the factory spent their time scrapping each other. Whether it was a game or serious was hard to tell. Sometimes they tried out different technologies that were grown from them, but most Cons grew weapons. The ones with blue optics were more reserved, but not to be underestimated.

At the moment two Cons were intertwined with each in an in-fight. With screeching and sparkling one ripped of a servo from the other. 

"That's enough" I decided and put the fighters apart.

Maybe a high youth mortality was natural for the ones with red optics. That didn't mean I had to accept that.

I brought the damaged one to a corner and took a look at the mess. I had no idea what I was doing, but I put the servo back in place and the two joint halves connected with a click, then I twisted the loose ends of the wires. Secretly I gave him a bit of Energon.

"Rest and it will repair by itself" I explained.

I knew they could, but poorly put together like this? That didn't matter as long as he stopped fighting. Spoiler: No. Until my next visit he had been scrapped completely and I didn't find out anything more. They only let me educate them that much.

When I left the factory I was stared at from several sides.

"Are you now a Decepticon mother?"

"Yes, Conmother, that's how we call you."

They laughed about me and I ignored them. I understood the meaning, but I could only speak the name while in bot mode. With a lot of imagination the name spoken by a human throat sounded like Se'eldra Sadr'khor. Well, now I was another person so it made sense to have a new name. This was it from now on. I didn't need to tell anyone what the name actually meant.

On my reconnaissance through Ceres a store catches my attention. "Simulations" I read on the sign. Interesting. I wonder how far technology got. Can they compete with my own? I can't actually imagine that. I get an idea: If I can feed my simulations into myself and into Cybertronians I can most likely do this to other humans as well. Then I can earn myself some coins - whatever the currency here is called. I just want to find out before which quality the local simulations have and what their prices are.

I step into the store and ask the young man behind the counter: "Are the simulations god?"

"Eh, what? You want simulations about god?"

"God ... god ..."

Why does he not understand?

With embarrassment I recognize that I know the words, but my tongue didn't know how to pronounce them correctly.

With a red face I leave the store without another word and search for a quiet corner, where I train the right pronunciation.

When I left the lab, outside a big Con in a strong orange tint stood as if he was waiting for me. With his crossed arms he reminded me of a bouncer.

"Where's Megatron?" I asked with the intent to try persuading him once again. I would try it again and again until we found an agreement.

The Con answered: "He has more important things to do. Now I am responsible for you. My name is M-426237."

I sighed and tried to remember the numbers. To cope with that I stored them so I could look them up when my human brain forgot them. First of all in the human language I needed almost half an hour to say the name. And how would it be to call him, would I shout out a list of numbers. But then I had a brilliant idea.

"You know what? I just call you Margret."

I laughed. It was so fitting, so genius.

He replied: "That is not my name."

"Yes, it is, see."

I explained how the digits formed the letters. Too bad he still didn't find it funny, no, he reacted annoyed every time I called him like that. What a dunce.

What kind of simulations the humans request from me is ... indescribable. What did I expect? Most of the time they want to experience some sexual stuff, which at least has been illegal in my times - probably here still - or they want to know what it's like to die. Or how it is to kill someone. I get the impression that some of them prepare for raids with this. Sometimes they want to talk to deceased ones, but without a conception of that person I can't do anything for them. I can simulate everything I can imagine, but people always want the same. I feel so dirty, hopefully these memories will fade away quickly. Well, at least I earn enough money so I can effort a trip. Because the constellation is fitting and because I absolutely want to see it I decide to stop off at Mars.

My processor analyzed the directions where the cannons of my opponents were aiming at, so I could react before they fired. I dodged the shots as well as I could, but it was hopeless, I could not get close enough to do something. I wish, I wish I could shoot as well.

Then he lowered his weapon and transformed the other servo to another one.

Out of a reflex I raised my arm which exposed a weapon and shot. Surprisingly. Slowly I saw the bullet flying in a high curve - wait a second, this was not slow motion but caused by my strain.

The bullet dropped to the ground, rolled towards my enemy and hit his foot, where it laid still.

The Con lowered his head. Stared on the bullet. Then he started to laugh.

Quickly I retracted my weapon, but it was too late. The Cons on the grandstands had seen it and also started to laugh. How embarrassing. Then I became angry.

The laughter sounded through the arena to the outside area and one of the Cons shouted through a crack in the wall to the outside: "Hey guys, the human shot, you need to see that!"

More Cons stepped onto the grandstands and placed themselves laughing at the balustrades. "Hey, human, do that again, we also want to see that. Splinter, make that the human does that again."

"I am not your toy!", I shouted to the Con and resisted to shoot at him.

"What will you do?", he replied. "Shooting at me? Come on, shoot at me!"

I formed fists and wanted to rip him apart. I ran towards him and started to climb the wall to the grandstands by pounding my claws into the clefts between the plates. I would show them. They would not get away with this.

When I climbed half the wall a bullet the size of a tennis ball smashed into the wall beside me. I had totally forgotten about my enemy. And that I was not mobile enough on the wall to dodge. With a sough in my ear I turned around, saw the next ball rushing towards me and raised my free hand to split that ball with my own bullet. I needed to aim well. A red dot appeared on the other side of the arena and the laughter started all over again.

"Do you have any weapons with you?" the security guy asks.

"Weapons? No, no, why?"

I refuse to accept a peashooter and a laser pointer as weapons.

"The body scanner seems to be broken. I cannot recognize anything on it. Come here." He frisks me. "Do you have any metal with you? An artificial hip joint?"

"Yes, I have two artificial hip joints and more artificial joints since my heavy accident some years ago. See." I lift my top and show the scar at the left lower rib. "This is where my ribcage broke apart like this." I complement this with a theatrical movement. "Fortunately now everything is fine again."

The security guy remarks: "Here in the center I cannot see anything on this picture."

"That's my pacemaker, which is fueled with nuclear energy. I also don't like it, but there was no organic option. Probably you cannot see anything because of the radiation."

He looks at me doubtingly. "I have never heard of such a thing."

"It's really very new, it's only a prototype. You'll see: soon everyone will run around with that."

No, it's not because of my Decepticon education. This is just necessary.

"I have to order you to go to my coworker for a strip-search so we can be sure you don't have any weapons with you." Ha ha, of course. I don't see any relation, but if they insist.

When I enter the hangar I breath faster. My eyes travel over the spaceships big and small. I stop. Here they are in my range. If one of THEM is here they could make themselves noticeable.

Nothing. Other passengers bump into me and demand that I go ahead.

Slowly I go forward and try to imagine, how they would react to me after all this time. Certainly not very friendly. Not that they have ever been friendly. I want to delay the encounter as much as possible.

Soon I reach my destination and enter the passenger ship, which will bring me to Mars.


	3. Travel to Mars 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra awakes on a ship of the Mars navy.

I transformed into human mode.

"Why are you always running around in this disgusting body?" the doctor asked. "As machine you could speak our language."

It was true - with the machine brain I understood the Cybertronian language, but my human tongue could not produce such sounds. So I continued to speak my native language, which the Cons had learned in their time on Earth, while they continued to speak the Cybertronian language to me.

"First, I don't consider myself disgusting. Second, I can handle you very well in this form. Third, I'm not annoyed by my form, why would I want to do you a favor?"

"Handle us!" He laughed. And sent through the aether: "Hey guy. The human can handle us!"

From the outside I heard far, rattling laughter from different directions. With a red face I stepped outside.

"Yes, and with your small machine mind you will never get the Allspark", I told him and slammed the door.

M-426237 awaited me outside and silently took his watch position nearby. I asked him: "Where is Megatron?"

"Lord Megatron orders to be not disturbed in his work by your trivia."

"What, the future of our races is a trivia?"

"Your useless discussions interrupt our progress. As long as you're not ... Hey, stay here!"

In Con mode I sprinted to the next building, climbed to a tiny window, transformed and barely fitted in as human. M-426237 was too big to follow me. And he didn't know if I was going up or down. Me not, too.

Quietly I waited in a corner until I heard him shouting from above, then I ran quietly downwards - as a human my steps were noiseless compared to the stomping of the heavy machines. Not that Cybertronians were known for their good hearing. Below I transformed again - in Con mode I could run faster - and sneaked away in the shadows of streets and half collapsed buildings.

I searched at the places where I had last seen Megatron: In the meeting room when making up plans with his closest inferiors - actually they were allowed to be present when he executed his mental processes - near a construction area where the Decepticons tried to patch collapsed buildings, in a prison where he squeezed out captured Autobots - literally - and vaporized them - there weren't many of them left - or in any control rooms.

This time I found him on a platform of a high building from where he could look all over the city, there he stood unmoving. I guessed he was thinking or whatever the correct term was for Cybertronians.

"Megatron" I addressed him and thought about what I was going to say.

He turned around. "What do you want? Where is M-426237? I demand that you turn to him before you waste my time with irrelevances."

"Well, because of the irrelevances ... I consider the methods of the doctor not working. I want to talk with you about the possibility to try some human methods. With a political relationship we could keep the peace and exchange information, like medical knowledge, which would help you to extract the Allspark ..."

"Nonsense. I know enough about the human methods."

"There is a lot of information in the Internet of the Earth, but not everything. I'm talking about ..."

"I'm not talking about that, don't you know anything?" Now he was ranting and raving again. "Don't you know that the humans developed all this technology by researching me? The humans know nothing I'm interested in. I will never ever cooperate with them and I order you to not pester me with that suggestion. Get lost now."

Hm, if humanity developed so far thanks to the Cybertronians I could not find anything bad about that. Actually it was an advantage - only because of that we could use the technologies from Earth instantly. He should feel honored.

"Okay, I get it. You're angry, because the humans made calculators after your image ..."

"How dare you!"

Oh, oh, he exposed his sword from his servo and rushed towards me. I raised my arms in defense.

"I ... I'm sorry."

He struck after me. I cringed and jumped away like so often in the arena.

"Come here, I rip you to pieces!"

He was fast kept going to struck after me. He drove me back to the edge of the road.

"I didn't mean it like that!"

In the corner there was no space left to dodge. In panic I jumped over the edge - and looked thousands of feet downward. I already saw my human body shattered on the ground from the impact. But the ground did not come. From my back two jet engines exposed, which kept me mid-air - I was surprised, too. But the joy lasted only very shorty. Behind me Megatron transformed to a mighty, angry jet, whose roaring engines spit fire when he accelerated a lot.

"No!"

"I let myself fall and dodged him barely. With surprisingly much shiftiness he turned almost on the same spot and rushed toward me. I flew to a half-damaged building and wanted to escape to the inside - then his hand grabbed me and his feet stomped against the facade, when he transformed back and hold himself there. His hand squeeze my bot body dangerously, so the metal pushed into my soft flesh under it.

"You have no right to talk to me like that, you worm!"

"I'm sorry!" I whimpered while my sensors showed how my health quickly decreased.

He crushed my ribs and lung.

"Please, think about the Allspark ..."

This brought him back to consciousness, at least for a bit and he loosened his grip.

"You will do a week of service in the arena."

"Yes, yes."

He threw me to M-426237 who stood waiting on the street below and caught me.

I was not able to move.

Megatron ordered: "Scalpel shall unrig her engines. And you better keep an eye on her or I will personally scrap you."

I awake from the hibernation when my sensors tell me that there is oxygen again. It is cold, so cold and I only see blurry. My hands still clasp the seat where I hold myself when activating the emergency signal, so I wouldn't be sucked to space. Huh, I had survived the attack without transforming myself. But who picked up the passenger ship?

I see silhouettes of people in space suits. The light blinds me. Weakly I raise a hand to protect my eyes from the light. No, these are combat dresses. They are soldiers.

They stare at me without any words.

My sensors show that my body temperature has dropped to inhuman 68 degrees and my muscles are useless in this state. My clock says that I waited several days before they came. Uh, hopefully I will find a good explanation for that.

For now I keep sitting and waiting. The humans around me are as surprised as I am to see me. Quietly they turn their helmets toward each other. Ah no, they are not quietly. I hear their voices damped like from far away.

Finally one of the soldiers comes to me and knees down beside me: "..."

Eh, what? I need some moments to understand what he says.

He asks: "How are you? Can you understand me?"

I nod slowly and try to find his eyes. I give my system some meaningless tasks to calculate to warm up quicker from the inside.

He says something to me and then gets up. Soon I understand: "I will get you a doctor."

"Oh no, not a doctor!" I want to say, but only incomprehensible mumbling comes out of my mouth. I am so cold, my body functions are so low that I don't even shake anymore.

Soon - it feels like an eternity to me, but are actually only a few minutes - the doctor comes to me and starts to examine me with surprise. He puts a medi-scan around my arm, sends light into my eyes and wonders how I can be alive. Again and again he shakes his head in disbelieve, mumbles something to himself, takes off the medi-scan, checks it and puts it on again.

Meanwhile I can talk again through closed teeth: "I was in hibernation. I need to wait until my body temperature normalizes" I explain as if it was the most normal thing in the entire world.

I hate how he stares at me so I do my best to explain him as much as possible. "I have a module for that, that activates when I'm low on oxygen. It is still in a test phase, maybe that's why you haven't heard of it yet.

"Nevertheless it's not possible. I'm working in this job for 20 years" he insists. "The human cannot survive this body temperature, plus there is the vacuum of space and the lack of oxygen you suffered. This is a medical miracle."

"You know, what they say: Bad weeds grow tall, ha ha" I laugh and get a disapproving raise of his eyebrow. Finally he leaves me. They help me to the ward, while they complain I would make myself heavy. There I'm allowed to lay down on a camp bed. "You start with warming yourself up" the doctor demands. "And I give you an injection against the radiation." Which radiation? Oh, he probably thinks the radioactive radiation of my spark is some contamination from space or from the damaged ship or who knows. He gives me an injection into the neck - yeah, right, as if this would do anything. Then he leaves me alone and returns regularly to check my values.

Still half hurt because of healing bruises I stood in the lab in human mode.

"I got an idea. This time I will succeed" the Doc whispered and ran around me excited. "Now, human, go to your place!"

I transformed to bot mode as usual, laid down on the table again and disappeared into the universe of my simulations.

"I separate the Allspark from you without killing you. Oh, I'm so genius" I heard him saying at the edge of my consciousness. Whatever you say, Doc.

Then I switched off my real body perception as far as possible.

At the edge of my consciousness at some point I noticed that nothing happened with my body, so I assumed it was over for today and came back. The Doc stood beside me on a side table and looked down on me heavily thinking.

"What ..." I was going to ask and noticed I had transformed to human mode and felt battered, still bruised from the last fight. With my mind I reached for my machine parts to check if everything was alright. Then I tried to transform. Nothing.

I leaned forward and grabbed the doctor.

"Stay away from me with your disgusting human body!"

But I was faster and grabbed him where biological beings had their throat.

"You stupid tin can, I cannot transform anymore!" I cried at him.

I panicked. This was a catastrophe.

"I still have two times arena service to do. How shall I stand that as a human?"

"Stop, let go of me!" he rattled, panicking himself. "I am protected by Megatron, you are not allowed to hurt me!"

M-426237 stepped in to check why the doctor was sending an emergency signal. He grabbed each one of us with a servo and separated us. He looked at me reproachfully with red glowing optical sensors.

"The doctor blocked my transformation ability."

"You are just incapable, useless" he replied.

I demanded: "He shall fix this or else I will die in the arena and you won't see the Allspark ever again."

M-426237 said nothing. Without words he set down the doctor and carried me outside. There he stopped. I assumed he was talking wirelessly.

Some minutes later Megatron arrived in Jet mode, transformed to his bipedal mode and made the street shake when he landed on the ground with his full weight.

His optical sensors glowed angrily at me, then to the lab. "Scalpel, what's going on here?"

The Doctor came out of the door.

"The human is scrap, totally useless, ready for disposal."

I dropped in: "That is your fault."

"Silence!" Megatron shouted at me. "Scalpel, you have a job. Can you fulfill what I ordered you or can you not?"

"I won't touch this disgusting, soft flesh!"

He disappeared into the lab.

Megatron looked back at me and I felt like pierced by lasers.

"If that is a trick to escape, I will wipe out your entire species."

He transformed to Jet mode and flew away with noise, while the fire of his engines left a black stain of soot on the ground.

And now I knew that I could not rely on my machine mode and that it was the right decision to run around as human as often as I could.


	4. Travel to Mars 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra is interrogated by Lopez.

I watch how one of the soldiers enters the ward and talks to the doctor, then he comes to me. I recognize the logo of the Mars navy on his uniform. At least this answers that question.

"If you feel better now Mr. Lopez wants to talk to you" he informs me.

I take this as a request, lift my legs from the camp bed and sit up. Instantly I fall to the ground. My body temperature is about 77 degrees.

"I cannot get up yet" I mumble disappointed. "Only with support."

With trouble I try to get back onto the camp bed and he comes to help me - how surprisingly and unfamiliar, people who are polite and help me? - and laughs: "Actually I meant that Mr. Lopez comes to you."

I agree. The soldier leaves and soon after that I get another visitor.

This Mr. Lopez is in his late forties and has a bright, attentive glance, which unsettles me as if he could see directly into my soul and see all my dark secrets. Still he acts friendly.

He sits down at my bed and takes out a small, black case, of which he takes out a small, transparent pearl, which he puts into his mouth.

I consider this strange.

"What's that?" I ask insecurely.

Loosely I remember stories from Mars I heard, that they often use drugs for all possible applications. I search in my database for information, but it could potentially be anything.

"You don't need to worry about that" he replies and continues unmoved: "Just tell me what happened. You were traveling with the passenger ship to Mars, right?"

I confirm. "After some days the crew suddenly became uneasy, but they didn't tell us what was going on. The ship shook and I thought it was hit by shots. Then they docked our ship and welded a hole into the hull, probably pirates, they came in armored, shot some people who came to close to them, it was a total chaos, screams everywhere."

I still see it vividly before me as if it just happened - which technically applies to me - and I talk myself into commotion. "Quickly they disappeared and the oxygen leaked through the hole in the hull. I lowered my metabolism and ran to the control console to switch on the emergency signal before I lost consciousness. I ... I could not help the others, I'm sorry."

Indeed I thought about patching up the hole with my body. Actually I simulated the situation a few times and concluded that it was pointless. Maybe I shouldn't have said it. Is it strange in that case to be sorry that you could not do anything? In my time on Cybertron I became more distant to humans - the feelings, if you could call it like this, of Decepticons are much simpler.

"You did what you could" he calms me. "How was your name?"

"Se'eldra Sadrkhor."

Shall he just check it: I'm officially registered as a passenger.

Maybe he already did that, because he continues: "Why did you want to travel to Mars?"

I think he is testing my trustworthiness - why else would he ask this, all of that I declared before the trip, this must be in the records he consulted about me. Or he tries to find out if I'm somehow involved in the raid. Shall he do that, there are no clues for that. This is just my bad luck.

"As it is said in the system: I'm on the way back to Earth and Mars is just an intermediate station."

"Why did you come to Ceres?"

"I wanted to get away from home and see something from the solar system."

His eyes look deeply into my ones. I wonder what he is up to.

"Your curriculum says you studied in Den Haag on Earth."

"Yes, I'm a software specialist."

"Who was your professor?"

"I ... had several."

"What was your thesis about?"

I'm getting nervous. I'm not prepared for these questions. My heart beats a bit too fast for my body temperature, I feel pins and needles in my flesh, where the warm blood flows back into the cold veins. I start to rub my hands to make the pins and needles at least in those go away.

"About ... about the combination of simulations with the areas of the brain that are responsible for dreaming to make the simulations extremely realistic."

I notice that I don't breath enough to fulfill the need of oxygen of my awakening cells and take some gasps.

Lopez keeps silent, keeps staring: "You haven't actually been on Earth, have you?"

"Yes, I was. Go ahead and analyze my DNA if you don't believe me."

He leans forward: "I read your résumé. Birth, school, studies in average length, travel to Ceres. Everything very linear as if nothing else has ever happened in your life. I've never seen such a badly faked résumé."

I lose control over my face. I've filled my résumé with the necessary information that is checked when someone looks at it. I cannot add too many details which would leave tracks elsewhere that don't exist. I have hacked the résumé into the official database, so it was technically real. How could he claim it would be fake??

I take some deep breathes to calm down and conclude that he has no evidence against me. Then I need to smile. Oh, this human is good, he could find out my ways if I was careless, but I will not let him. At least not, because I don't know where this information will go to or to whom.

"I've told you enough. That is my résumé and I cannot do anything for you if you don't like it. Or if other people are less determined than I am or are less lucky. If you need a proof, give me a computer and an ambitioned task."

I assume this would settle it, but instead he smiles. "I don't believe you. Are you aware that you are the only survivor of the attack? An impossible survivor?"

"Yes, because of my hibernation module."

"And that nobody except us knows you survived?"

I look at him, but I cannot read anything in his eyes. What's that supposed to mean? Am I declared dead only because my ship is destroyed??

"Are you going to shoot me dead?"

This would wake my instinct for self defense. I would transform. They would learn my secret. And the radiation of the Allspark would tell everyone that I'm here.

"You are bluffing. You cannot just shoot me dead."

"We cannot let you leave as long as we are not sure that you are no danger for Mars."

I cannot resist to grin when looking at him. As much as I dislike the situation, I marvel at his tactic. I try to look friendly.

"I confess: I'm a political refugee and escaped to Ceres to hide. But I have nothing to do with the raid of the pirates."

With a visible feeling of satisfaction he sits himself uplifted. Yeah, go ahead and enjoy your part, it won't help you a thing.

"What's your real name?"

"Se'eldra Sadr'khor is my real name."

"With which name you were born?"

I rub my icy fingers at each other. The talking warms me up faster than expected - a heated talk. This name does not exist on Earth. I was born without a name on Cybertron, if you could call it like that. Well, for most Cons my name was "human". This works fine as a name as long as you are the only human on the planet. But I cannot say that? He would not believe my name. I look down in silence.

Lopez pushes: "I need answers. What is your name?"

"Sara Lea Choregsweg."

"Thanks. I will check on that."

He gets up and leaves. I am happy that this tension is over - and at the same time I'm sad about his leaving? He is an interesting person, but also dangerous. Maybe I should bugger out. But where should I go? The information I have could bring everyone in danger, I must not let them get anything out of me. Not without making sure that nothing of it gets out.

When he returns my core already reached working temperature. I mean human-friendly 90 degrees. My heart skips a beat - because of excitement or anxiety is hard to tell. I shake and the feeling in my limbs is back, human feeling.

"I checked your statements. A person with that name existed on Earth and was declared missing. More than 300 years ago."

"I slept for a while."

"Your story gets more incredible every minute."

"I can get you a hibernation module if you like, then you can test it for yourself. It could take some month though, due to paper work and everything, but it's possible."

I am halfway convinced of that. I'm already thinking about how I could develop such a module with which he could do that. I could copy the respective transmitters and program a central control unit, then I would need to somehow spread the transmitters in his body.

"This doesn't explain where you have been the last 300 years."

"It's not becoming more believable if I tell you any more details."

"Oh, really?" He looks at me provoking. "Challenge me. Just tell me all the details."

I consider this and I don't see another way out. He will not be satisfied with only hints. I make up a plan in my head. There is a way out: The flight to the front.

"You know, I have some trouble. I cannot tell how dangerous these information are. If there was someone I could trust, with whom I could speak about that, who could help me with some details that would benefit both sides, then I could decide if I better tell you or if you better shoot me dead."

"You can trust me. If you're not a danger for Mars you have nothing to worry about and I will take care of the formalities."

Well, better than nothing. I sigh and give in.

"Okay. If we can talk in private in a room without cameras, I will show you."

"Show me what?"

"Everything."

He looks at me, waiting for anything else - interested? - or maybe thinking about what I could mean with that. Finally he gets up.

"Thanks. I will consider your offer."

When he's gone I get up and start to make small steps, to speed up the warming of my body. Under disapproving glances of the doctor I drag myself through the room, although I've already explained it to him - nobody believes a thing I'm saying, I understand.

When he is searching in a cupboard I sneak to his desk where I assume a built-in computer, so I can keep the wireless communication as short as possible. Firstly I manipulate the cameras watching me, then I check if I can notice the presence of "relatives" - no - and I download all data I can find onto my inner system. When he shortly turns around I pretend to be so weak that I need to support myself with the help of his desk, while I step forward and prepare myself for the distance to the next camp bed.

I steal a huge amount of data about the ship, sensor data and private communication among the crew members. Most of it is not interesting for me. I want to know what weapons they have.

When Lopez returns I have reached normal body temperature and can move normally. I play with my fingers, wiggle my toes and make some gymnastic exercises. With his arrival my sensors measure a jump in temperature and pulse.

"I accept your offer" Lopez lets me know.

"Oh, really?"

I am surprised. Or maybe not, he is something special. Actually I'm already busy making plans for my escape.

Before the door two armed soldiers wait who escort us. At the destination Lopez opens the door.

"Here we can talk undisturbed" he explains while he lets me in first. "The sentinels stay outside."

"That's okay."

"The door will not be locked. They can come in if the need arises."

I grin impishly: "Are you scared of me? Come on, I'm probably the only person aboard without military training, am I right?"

He does not answer and pushes a button that closes the door. Then we sit down at the table and he looks at me full of expectation.

I expose my tail, under the table, under his chair, up behind his back. Finest endings of the tips pierce his neck, contacting his nervous system and I project the simulation directly into his mind before his head falls down and I jump up to catch him and gently put him down, then I also jump into the simulation.


	5. Travel to Mars 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra shows Lopez past events in simulations.

We found ourselves at a beach. The setting sun glowed weakly through the fog that surrounded us. Lopez looked around in surprise, looked at me, looked to the sky in awe. Then he went away a few steps, felt through the air where the wall of the room should be, but there was nothing.

"Did you read in my résumé that I earned my money on Ceres with simulations? This is my home simulation, which I project directly into your mind" I explained.

He kneeled and picked up some sand which he let rinse through his fingers. "Fascinating. It seems so real."

I could not express how happy his statement made me. Luckily he wasn't looking at me at the moment.

I told him: "Once I had a dream that the world was an island and somebody told me that there wasn't anything else. But I didn't believe him, so I went through the water and found another island, another world and finally I found this beach. Do you believe that there is anything else behind the horizon?"

He didn't answer.

I waited until he stopped exploring.

"I was a bit surprised that you agreed and made no plan how to start. I thought I better give you an inconspicuous look, then you can freely move and look around."

In the next moment we found ourselves on Cybertron. It was dark. The streets were illuminated in blue, but only a bit to save energy. We were standing on one of the bigger planes, above us we saw levels of wide streets shaped like honeycombs and the buildings on them. Everything was made from metal. Everything was stained with rust. Some of the smaller streets were rusted through and bended under their own weight. Also some of the buildings showed flaws on a closer look: bended panels and loose screws. This was a dying world.

I was a human and stepped toward the big robot who shouted commands to other, smaller robots on the streets in front and above him. It looked as if they tried to repair this world: They pinned covers onto the bigger rust stains or replaced broken parts by other, not remotely similar looking ones but that fitted into the gaps and gave the whole thing a strange look. This seemed hopeless and unnecessary to me.

"Megatron" I lifted my voice.

Not before the second call he heard me and turned to the small crumb that I was. He loomed up high above me. If the sun would have shined, I could have said that he casted me into a shade.

"What do you want?" he barked. "You worm, how dare you to disturb me. Don't you see I'm busy preventing the downfall of my kind? Go to the Doctor and make yourself useful, abominable creature."

Quietly I sent my voice to Lopes, who was standing nearby as M-426237 and listened: "For a long time I tried to find the answer, that convinces him to not extinguish the humans. Do you have a suggestion?"

But I did not get an answer.

Staying true to reality I simulated Megatron's reaction. I knew him well enough for that. Nothing I said could make him change his mind, now it didn't matter, so I said the first thing that came to my mind: "I think we should talk about that. Maybe we find a solution, with which none of our races gets extinguished. I ... would prefer that."

Megatron grabbed me, clasped my delicate human body.

"This will teach you to question my plans."

He threw me away as if I was nothing. In a high curve I flew through the air, streets and buildings passing me by. I screamed in fear. If I would hit the hard metal ground my body would be smashed and my guts would splatter in all directions.

I transformed.

Just in time, before I fell through a roof and hit the ground with bright sound. Meanwhile I had learned to protect my human body and would only receive some bruises. Well, and a heavily damaged bot body.

The hall where I was belonged to a building called arena: Here the Decepticons trained by taking up on each other. Often they did it outside, too - then they often fought out of small differences in opinions, that was accepted. But in the arena was no danger to hit uninvolved Cons or buildings with projectiles, besides, here were tribunes for the audience. Above all I could not easily escape from here.

In front of me three Cons stepped into the arena, all of them at least double as high as I, if I stood upright in bot mode. Especially was the arena meant as punishment for me and as training for my opponents, who dominated me by far in respect to weapon strength. They were grown up as fighters and now they killed time here. I was in derision with my pea shooter and my laser pointer and always left the arena as pile of scrap. But not today, today I had a plan.

Behind me Lopez/M-426237 stepped into the area of the audience.

Without a signal my enemies suddenly attacked - nobody of the Cons cared much for rules. They exposed their cannons and swords and moved asunder, to attack me separately - coherence was not one of their strengths.

Some energy balls as big as footballs passed me by, I dodged. When my bot body was not good for much it was agile.

Some bullets hit me from another direction - they threw me back and left some dents in my case. My human flesh underneath it screamed in pain, but I ignored it. That would give me some heavy bruises. At least my bot body was resistant enough to protect my human body from most injures.

The first Con came into my range and striked out with some kind of glowing sword.

I dodged, jumped behind him and pounded the tip of my tail into his neck.

This was my plan: When I could bring myself into a simulation and when I could use my natural bot skills to connect with anything that had a micro chip I could as well do this with Cons.

Fine ends of my tail connected with the system of the Con. I felt his surprise, then his anger and he started to fight against me. Quickly I copied some data onto his system and disconnected.

He felt to the ground without a further move.

On the Earth there was the popular prank to make someone click on a link that lead to a specific video. Because of this video the prank was called Rickrolling. I considered this funny. That was what I used to switch off the Cons: "Never gonna give you up" looped for ten hours, afterwards he would awaken. Too bad that no one else except me understood that joke.

The second Con came close, probably he hadn't understood why the other one didn't move anymore or he didn't care and he thought he would do better. I jumped around him and gave him the same cultural experience.

The third Con seemed to be a bit insecure and fired at me from a safe distance. I circumvented them and rushed towards him - he was too big to react quickly, so he went down.

I looked around - that was it, no more enemies, time to leave the arena. I transformed into my human mode again and hummed the melody. Ouch, several spots of my body burned in pain - not that bad, that would heal. I pulled myself together and tried to walk normally.

Until I was back at Megatron that worked fairly well.

"Megatron" I called.

He turned around in surprise.

I was amused. "You should have sent me some stronger enemies."

"Now go the Doctor" he barked and stomped with loud blaster some more steps to better shout commands to the Cons on the other side.

I sighed and did as he told me. It was a rare opportunity to go to the Doc on my own legs.

Actually he was not a doctor, but "quack" probably was not a good name for a Decepticon?? His job was to find a way to separate the Allspark from my human body. In their first try they had almost killed me and the Allspark erased with me - the only reason why I was here. But also all following tries haven't succeeded. I just considered him a jerk.

After a short way I entered his lab - in my opinion more of a lumber-room for lost property, that had nothing to do with each other.

"Good that you are here" he whispered when I entered and he stepped to me.

Behind me Lopez/M-426237 entered the room. "May I watch?" he asked.

At this point I bended the realism I was so proud of and he answered: "For all I care, but don't you touch anything!"

Tz, Lopez was out of character. M-426237 never asked for permission.

And to me the Doctor said: "I have a great idea, this time it will work. Take on your Con mode and lay down on the chair."

I transformed and let the Doc strap me to that table-chair-thingy. Usually then I disappeared into a simulation and kept myself busy with that until the Doc was done with his newest abomination of an experiment - not this time, this time I was already in a simulation and knew what would happen.

He brought a machine in position that was built with several circular saws on mechanical arms, which could be controlled by levers on a console - wherever he had found that, was it another Con at the end? Did it have a name? Was it still alive?

"We just cut the Spark out of you, but it has to be when you are a Con! How could I have overlooked it until now?" the Doc explained excited by his own idea.

Note that he said "Spark, not "Allspark". Lopez didn't need to know everything.

The Doc jumped onto the control console and pressed a button. A saw moved close to my rib cage near my left lower rib. It dug into my case, glowing metal chippings flew away. Then it sawed even deeper, reached my human body and tiny red drops started to accompany the metal chippings and sprinkled onto wall and floor.

I screamed.

With a bang the cables of the machine burned through and it was thrown back - a strike of Energon from my Spark had finished it off.

I unsnapped myself from the chair, jumped to the Doctor and grabbed his neck: "You stupid thing, you bungler, you quack!"

Blood ran down on me and dripped onto my left foot. The choking itself didn't do something, but the cables and hinges that loosened under my grip.

"No, let go off me, I will tell Megatron!" he gasped before a strike of Energon from me killed him with a bang and left him drooping and motionless in my grip.

Then I realized what I had done - I had killed the only Con with at least a bit of medical knowledge, the only one they trusted to solve the most important task of all. I had destroyed their hope and above all the one who was directly protected by Megatron. I was in a tight corner. I needed to disappear from here as fast as possible.

But now I canceled the simulation and we were back at the beach. I lifted my top and showed him the big, white scar at my left lower rib as a proof.

"Then I secretly left Cybertron and went on my way back to Earth" I explained. "Until I dashed into the belt and entered Ceres. I said the truth: That I'm from Earth and a political refugee. I'm hiding among humans and I only want to live in peace."

The simulation was based on my memories, but I had merged several occurrences to show one coherent event.

"Please show me the moment when the pirates raid the ship."

He had caught himself. Without any insecurity, professionally he continued the talk as if it was the most natural thing to do. No more questions about what he had seen? Well, strike me pink. Probably he needed to let it set first.

I doubted: "I can show you everything possible in the simulation. If you don't believe me then you can't trust the simulation."

"Just do it."

I thought about how to best do it. "Okay. I give you my body, then you can see the happening until the end."

We found ourselves in the passenger ship, concretely only in my body, but with two consciousnesses. Of course I did not give him control over all of my features.

It was a cheap flight, the air was stiffly and it was tight. I sat wedged between an old, unclean woman who snored with hanging head and a young man with yellow skin.

Lopez looked down at me/us and looked at my/our hands, then he looked around in the room. I could not read minds. On Cybertron the Cons had spoken in the Cybertronian language with me and I could let Lopez understand its meaning. Conversely I did not know, what he saw. Whether he could identify the kind of ship I could not tell. At least he seemed to not know any of the passengers in my sight, for that he looked at them too shortly.

One member of the staff suddenly ran out of the pilot's cabin. The young man shouted to us: "Please close your seat belts. We need to flight some evasion maneuvers. There is no reason to be worried."

He passed us passengers and made sure that everyone was following that order.

When the man had disappeared back into the pilot's cabin a heavy impact hit our ship from the side. I was thrown to the old woman, who calmly kept sleeping, but other women screamed and a baby started to cry from somewhere, then from the same direction the voice of a woman started to calm the baby down. At this point I had thought the ship had been hit by an asteroid.

For a while nothing happened, the guests calmed down one after another.

Then the ship was hit by a second impact.

In the corridor lights appeared at a wall who left a rectangular form of glowing lines.

A kick throw the part of the hull to the inside onto the ground.

Creepy figures in spacesuits with guns entered the ship, the first one turned to the pilot's cabin, the second directly behind him turned to us and started to shoot.

From the first few rows blood splattered onto us, I ducked behind the seat before me, or rather I could not tell if Lopez or I controlled that, maybe it was both our instincts.

The head of the old woman had been fallen to the front and was now hanging beside me - I looked at her and noticed that she didn't breath anymore.

The shooting had stopped - with single bullets he silenced single screams.

Carefully I looked between the seats and saw how the man moved the muzzle above us over the row, ready to shoot again if he liked to.

"Stop. Can you stop this?" Lopez suddenly said with my mouth.

In the course of the realistic simulation and because of the automatism the man pointed his gun to us. I really stopped before he shot - I had never done such a thing.

Oh, I saw what he was aiming at. Two attackers had broke open a door opposite of their entrance and carried out a small box between them. I had not noticed that before, but my subconsciousness had registered it and showed it in the simulation.

Lopez opened our seat belt. We were the only thing that moved in this frozen world. He got up, pushed himself through the row of seats, passing the people in them and went to the men who carried the box.

"Can you open this?"

"I don't know what's in it and I would just improvise something."

He seemed to think, at least nothing happened for a while. Maybe he imprinted the look of the box into his mind.

"Okay" he finally said. "Bring me back." 

I brought us back to the beach. I considered this fitting as a break. When I brought people from the simulation of a place to a similar real place - like from one spaceship to another one - they sometimes reacted confused and desoriented.

He was now standing in front of my and smiled at me. My heart skipped a beat.

"All the way back, please."

His wish was my command.


	6. Travel to Mars 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lopez transmission of Seldra's information gets her into trouble.

After not even half an hour Zelda, the soldier who had brought me to this cell, came again to my door to pick me up. She brought me to the command bridge where Lopez and the Captain waited for me.

Lopez turned to me: "Captain Yao wishes to see the same simulation of the robots on the alien planet."

"No" I said shortly and looked around in the room as if the case was closed with that.

"That's an order" the Captain adds with a hard voice.

I tried to speak with a conciliatory voice: "The simulations are something very personal. I feed them from my memories and my subconsciousness. I don't share that with everyone." And especially not without financial compensation.

Turning to Lopez I added: "Consider yourself privileged."

The Captain staid obstinately. "I give the commands here and I order you to share your information with me."

"You cannot force me. I showed Lopez everything important, that should be enough."

Now Lopez tried again to convince me with his charm: "Please, do what the Captain demands. She wants to make up her own mind. You are a guest on this ship. She has the right to retreat our hospitality anytime."

Hm, then I got a better idea. "Okay. The best is if I show everyone. I need a screen."

Without permission I stepped to the next control console - a soldier stepped into my way, but I already was close enough, exposed my tail and connected to the console.

The lights in the whole command bridge turned off. Red warning lights flashed in unison with the sound of the warning buzzers and all screens displayed the message that was sent over all loud speakers: "Attention, attention. Self destruction activated. The ship will destroy itself in two minutes. The ship will destroy itself in one minute, fifty-seven seconds. The ship will …"

I disconnected my tail from the console and the soldier drove me a few steps backwards, but the countdown went on.

The Captain gave orders to stop the sequence, but the ship didn't react.

"What did you do?" she hissed at me.

I explained with a smile: "Lopez said that I officially died in the raid of the passenger ship. That you are the only ones who know about my survival. You know what: You are also the only ones who know about my second nature. You want to protect Mars? It would be the best for the whole humanity if nobody knew that I'm here, so they won't find me."

The soldier waved his muzzle in front of my face: "Deactivate the sequence!"

"Go ahead and shoot me. I survive bullets, I survive the explosion. Just shoot, I don't care."

But he didn't shoot and Lopez tried his luck again. He came so close that I felt the warmth of his body and I got nervous when he whispered into my ear: "The destruction of the Donnager is an act of war. That could lead to a war between Earth and Mars. Please, don't do it."

It was interesting to see, how differently people reacted to the incoming end of their lives. Some started to cry, some prayed, some fell into disbelieving rigor. They were soldiers, but they were not as hard as they liked to pretend to be.

When we reached the last ten seconds the Captain dashed at me and attacked my face with her fists.

I didn't resist, it didn't matter.

One hit - the back of my head hit the ground. One hit - my lip started to bleed. One hit - I felt warm blood running out of my nose.

The countdown reached zero.

All lights, screens and the warning buzzers switched off.

The a melody started from the speakers and a video appeared on every screen, in which a red-haired men danced.

Numbed with disbelief the Captain stopped with her fist in mid-air and stared onto the next screen in front of her.

In pain I started to laugh, that was worth it, and the first verse started: "We're no strangers to love …"

Also here the reactions were as different as the people, but except me nobody laughed.

The Captain stood up and rubbed her knuckles. "Switch that thing off."

I tried to get up, but then blood ran out of my nose like a waterfall. I tried to catch it with one hand and stabilized myself with the other hand on the ground and colorful stains danced in front of my eyes. I needed to lay down on the ground and wait until the bleeding stopped.

They had to endure "Never gonna give you up" until the very end.

When the song was over, all lights turned on and the ship went back to its normal functionality.

"Do you still want to see a simulation of Cybertron?" I asked provoking. "No idea why you think it is a good idea to trust me with your brain."

"Take that creature away!" the Captain barked to the soldier who had brought me here.

Lopez followed us. I was brought back to my cell, where the intelligence officer directed some words to me: "You should've not done that. The Captain is very angry." 

"What's she gonna do?" I replied. "Send me back home? To Mars or to Ceres? You should've not told her about me. She will never see or treat me as a human again."

"Well, you didn't behave very humanly."

"That doesn't matter. I tried to live like a human among humans, but I cannot do that if they know what I am."

"I think your behavior indeed plays a role how you are treated."

"Oh, is that so? I was on Ceres before. The Marsians consider Belters as substandard humans, without they ever did something for that, don't they?"

He sighed and turned back from the door. I thought it was a sign of agreement, but before he left he said: "Deeds always play a role. Also Belters can decide to cooperate with Mars."

Bored I was just napping on the camp bed in my cabin when I heard steps on the corridor that signified incoming visitors and came up in excitement. And froze.

There were Lopez and the soldier. She was carrying a weapon ready to shoot.

"What are you doing?" I asked. Why would they escort me with even more security. I already could have done anything if I wanted. Killing somebody, buggering out ...

Lopez opened the door. "You said we could not shoot you dead with our calibres. Can you confirm this to my coworker?"

"Well, yes, but ..."

The soldier aimed at me and pulled the trigger - I transformed automatically. The bullet hit my chest and threw me back to the wall, where I transformed again and hold my chest trying to breath. The bullet had recoiled and hit a hole into the wall. That was dangerous.

I was ... furious. "Do you actually know how much this hurts?"

I wanted to explain to him that the machine was only a thin layer on top of my human flesh, which was still vulnerable - but I could not say anything else and rattled.

The soldier said cheekily: "It seems we need a bigger caliber." I coughed: "Then I only get angry! Stop that crap."

Lopez gave the soldier a sign to lower the weapon, then he came to me, kneeled down and gently checked the purple-black bruise that formed on my low neckline - in this moment I would have forgiven him everything.

"Don't you never-ever do that again" I said and wondered if I had transformed back quickly enough to prevent the worst things from happening. "And you should move the ship. We must not be the closest object to this point."

"Why?"

"They're searching for me. They could find me because of my energy signature when I'm in bot mode."

He gave me a confident smile. "Don't worry. Nobody can face up to our weapon systems. But I will still forward your suggestion."

When he made sure that I was almost fine he let me alone.

Soon after I was picked up again from my cabin and brought to the command bridge. They had learned and now four soldiers were taking care that I did not come close to any control console.

How curious, why did the Captain want to speak to me here again after everything I did?

She spoke calmly and sticked to the facts, asking me a simple question: "Since quiet a while a ship is following us. They're staying out of our range and don't react to our radio messages. Do you know it?"

It was shown on the main screen.

I am shocked. "That … that's Rage."

Rage, the spaceship of the new generation of Megatron had been my biggest nightmare back on Earth. Untiringly he had followed the signature of the Allspark inside of me. I could not run or hide from his size. He was standing head and shoulders and much more over me.

"They know I'm here."

"What kind of weapons do they have?"

What … what a strange question? They were living machines. Why would you care if they shot plasma or bullets the size of footballs?

"Rage is a living spaceship. He's thinking. He takes care that he is not hit. I haven't seen him for centuries, how should I know what weapons he got in the meantime."

I was wondering why he hadn't attacked yet. Maybe he was checking the situation. Maybe he was not sure if I was here. The Donnager had moved since my last transformation, this left space for uncertainty. No, on this distance he felt my presence - there was another reason for his hesitance. Probably he was thinking back to our time on Cybertron, considering if I would survive a direct attack or if he needed a more subtle strategy.

Finally a transmission arrived us and with a chill I realized that on the spaceship everything was filled with surveillance cameras, everything was filled with small spies to which all Cybertronians had natural access.

Megatron's face appeared on the main screen. "Humans. Among you is one of us who does not belong to you. Hand out Conmother and I will let you live."

I was whispering to the Captain: "He hates humans. He will kill everyone aboard if you hand me out."

"Quiet! I did not ask for your opinion."

Megatron turned his face to me. "Conmother."

Just now I realized, that I was standing in the view of the main camera. I got frightened unnoticeable.

"How about you just come over here. And we talk. I am ready to forgive you that you killed my best mechanic."

I was about to answer, then the Captain interrupted: "Nobody goes anywhere without my permission."

She turned to Megatron: "You threatened my crew. That is unacceptably. Retreat or we are forced to open fire."

"Threatened your crew? And what did you do to Conmother that she looks like this?"

Oh … My hand was touching my swollen lip and my black eye. "That is something entirely different!"

Megatron turned to the Captain. "You worm started the attack with that. If you don't hand out Conmother I will get her myself."

The screen turned black when the transmission stopped. For a second it was quiet in the room, except for the beeping of the instruments.

Then one of the men who was looking on his own area of control instruments and screens reported: "Five units left the hostile ship and accelerate toward us."

I got white like the wall. I didn't want to go back, never-ever. They would never let me leave a second time.

"Prepare torpedoes and fire" the Captain ordered.

The men executed the order and reported their status.

"Fifteen torpedoes fired."

Some seconds passed

The man reported: "Targets dodged. No hits."

In despair I let my face sink into my hands. I was searching for a mistake on my side, thought about what I could have done, what I could have said to avoid this situation. What I could have done better when Megatron appeared. I had no idea.

The Captain shouted: "Fire! Give them everything we've got!"

The men pushed buttons on their consoles and shouted status updates.

"Targets too close for torpedoes."

"Use the rail guns."

"Targets too fast. They also dodge the rail guns."

Then a slight impact hit the ship. What had happened?

"Hostile targets docked our ship. They … ripped a hole into the hull." Shortly after: "Hostiles intruding through the hole in the hull."

The Captain: "Send soldiers to them. Throw at them everything we've got."

My breathing accelerated and adrenaline shot into my veins. I prepared myself for the fight - my freedom should come at high costs for them.

I turned to one of the soldiers who guarded me: "Give me your weapon."

He ignored me.

"I can fight them, but I don't have any weapons …"

He pushed me away with the opening of his gun.

I got angry. Then he better shot at me, why would I let him hold me back?

I was about to transform and take the gun from him - it was too weak to do the sightliest scratch to Megatron's chassis, but maybe I got any idea - then Megatron ripped with his bare hands a hole into the wall of the command bridge to clear his way.

He shouted my name.

Through the hole behind him, he and his henchman had digged, the emptiness of space sucked air and humans, straight into his direction.

I transformed, exposed my jet engines and accelerated into the opposite direction. Which at least kept me at the same position.

The soldiers, the control staff, the Captain and Lopez, they all flew toward him. Before they reached him, with disgust in his optics he raised his gun and pulverized them.


	7. Travel to Mars 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra escapes from the Donnager.

Lopez awakens visibly surprised on his place at his desk. He startles and gasps for breath. Astonished he looks around.

I can't help but to laugh hearty. "I'm sorry, but I had to check if the weapon systems of the Donnager are strong enough to ... resist and attack."

No, I'm not sorry. I would have done it anyway. You have to use such chances. "Maybe you should carefully consider who you tell what about me."

He uplifts himself and funbles over his body.

"Pain only exists in our minds, that's why it's always real" I comment.

He looks at me, then he goes to the wall and strokes it. "And how do I know it is not a simulation this time?"

"Oh, if I would do that more often with you, you would start to notice. I feed them from my memories and my imagination. For instance if I would show you a simulation of Mars, which I have never seen before, you would instantly see a difference, because you know it better than me. Or if you talk to enough people, who can only tell you what I know. For the moment you have to believe me."

With a serious voice I add: "From now on there is no second chance, no room for mistakes."

As if he would see it for the first time he looks around the room. Then he goes to his computer and slides through the menu with his hands in the air. "This is incredible."

I laugh. As if he is seeing a computer for the first time. Clients who want to see a simulation of the real environment, report more déjà-vus, if I perform too well at my task. Sometimes ... they don't come back. And keep on living believing their life is a simulation. Luckily this happens rarely. Maybe one or two times. I didn't met all of my clients twice, so there might be more.

Lopez notices astonished: "I accessed the very same data in the simulation." Then his hand freezes in the air and he stares at me.

I can almost see how he starts to understand. Yes, my dear, I know all of your data. "Yes, sorry, you need to do the work of the last couple of days all over again."

"The Captain discussed her further plans with me."

"Really?", I say playing the surprised one as if I wouldn't know everything that happens in my own simulation. "That was easy to guess."

"Zelda told me about her little brother."

"In her private mails there's everything about his illness."

"Oman found the necklace he had lost a week ago. In the ventilation system."

Bored I put my head on my hand. "Saw it on the surveillance cameras."

"How do you know all of this? You could impossibly got all that data or analyze it in this time frame."

I smirk. "Interesting. Tell me more about what I can't do."

I lean backwards in confidence. "Maybe I should better do your job."

In my curiosity I also checked Lopez' data. With a little sting I realize he's married. Well, what did I expect.

I get serious again. "You can make electronic notes about me, but you should encrypt them. I don't mean cryptographically, but in metaphors."

"What about your name?"

"As long as you write it in human alphabets it's fine. Oh ... but Se'eldra Sadr'khor is my name. Not the other one."

I did all of that although I am only half Cybertronian. Just imagine what happens if a whole fraction arrives here. I don't like to imagine that. The ship seems to be clean.

"You probably have much to work through. Can Zelda take me back to my cell?"

Lopez stares onto the screen for another moment, then he nods and calls for Zelda. 

I watch the timer on my inner system which I set when I was busy with Lopez. When it reaches zero all lights in the Donnager shut off and the systems go down, except a few. This time I'm smart enough not to leave my handwriting and the blackout is not attended with music.

I leave my cell - I stun the guard in front of my door with my tail in his neck without bringing him into a simulation, just until I pass him by.

I go to the hangar, take a small ship and leave the Donnager. Actually I thought some hours would be enough to hit the road, but when I scout the ship I have to find out that the "Bug" is just a jolly-boat and not made for long distances. Oh my. It would be so embarrassing to get picked up by the Donnager now and to look Lopez in the eyes.

"Well, small Bug" I say out loud talking to myself and to the control console. "Then we want to see what we can get out of you."

I had just left Cybertron and flew through space in my new capsule mode. I was scared and watched anxiously the sensors in my case if something, someone was getting close. What they would do to me after I had killed the Doctor and escaped I didn't want to imagine. Every moment they could find me. The further I got away from Cybertron, the more secure I felt.

Then I received Megatron's transmission from far away. "Conmother, I know you're listening. I order you to return this instant."

I ignored that. I wouldn't even answer, because then he could estimate in which direction and how far away I was.

After a while he broadcasted again: "Conmother, I know exactly what you're planning. You want to return to Earth, to your so-called human friends. But let me tell you: You don't belong to them anymore. You're now half human, half machine. They will not see you as equal. For them machines are only tools, only slaves and research objects. They will saw you open like they did with me. They will research you and experiment on you. Maybe they will try to use your abilities for themselves. You cannot live on Earth in freedom anymore, not like you could live on Cybertron. I let you go wherever you wanted and I let only experiment on you because of the Allspark. The humans will lock you in and they will never be satisfied. You will wish you would've stayed with me on Cybertron. You will crawl back to me and see that I was right. There is only one way to prevent all that. Return now and give me the Allspark."

I closed myself to his words. I didn't want to hear anything of that. Still they burned into my mind.

"Very well, as you want" he finally continued. "Then we will wait there for you. You won't escape us. Megatron out."

Pleasant silence enshrouded me. His words had moved me deeply. They showed he was not able to find a small crumb like me in the vastness of space. And if he would find me with his dying people and if my human mode was not enough to be accepted as a human we would see.


	8. PART II - Mars 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra finds a friend and a home on Mars.

There is a problem: The heating up of my body when entering the atmosphere. And there is a simple solution: you take a shield, for instance an asteroid, and cover yourself in it. Or a satellite. Anything, which is big enough to work as a heat shield.

I take care to land somewhere where it causes as less damage as possible - in a dome that looks like a storage. There are no humans running around and not much happens if some oxygen escapes into the atmosphere. Okay, I destroy some tools and food supplies, but you have to set priorities. If I would land in an open plane how would I reach the cities? There is no oxygen outside. I cannot run around in bot mode.

I sneak out of the storage. Finally I can take some time to look around. Through the glass domes that surround the cities I can see the red landscape outside. The Mars is beautiful. It would be a shame if Megatron would destroy it.

I knee down and lift some sand, which I let trickle down through my fingers. Red sand, beautiful.

Without further ado I go to the train station, there the railroads lead through a glass tunnel to the next city dome. I get on my way.

The sun is burning onto the tunnel and greatly increases the surrounding temperature. I sweat and wipe the drops from my forehead. After some hours I reach the city which seems to be pretty cool compared to the tunnel.

Now it's time to earn some money again to get on a flight to Earth, but new problems arise: Ceres is a big chaos with many buildings, tunnels and garbages stacked on top of each other. Mars on the contrary is tidy with much free space, much on street level. I don't see places where I could feed my simulations to customers without being seen. The garbage is limited. There is much recycling going on and I barely find something to eat. And there are more surprises. In Ceres's dark corners a black market blooms and people pay with cash. Here everyone pays electronically. Also I don't see any other homeless people. Maybe I should drop my plan and just sneak onto a space ship. But in this dome beside some residential houses and shops there is no facility to leave the planet. First I need to orientate myself.

I spot a very old woman who has charged her walking frames with shopping goods and pushes it forward with great effort.

I just go to her. "Excuse me. May I carry your shopping goods to your home?"

She turns into my direction. "Thanks, kiddo. I was just assuming that everyone else has also turned blind out of sympathy for me."

Only then I see that instead of eyes ... that looks like an accident to me. "They obviously are. You are just the only one to admit it."

She laughs like a witch. "You are trying to be funny, aren't you, toots?" Hey, what's that suppose to mean.

I take the most heavily looking bags. Oh, they're really heavy. We go on our way.

She introduces herself: "I am Margret. Not Maggie or something, I hate that. Just Margret."

"Incredible, that is the best name ever!"

"Really?" she asks in disbelief.

"Yes, that's also the name of one bad guy I once knew ... Actually I just called him Margret to annoy him."

"But the name is no reason to be annoyed. There are much worse."

"I could not remember his real name, let alone pronounce it and 'Margret' was close enough" I explain.

She asks: "What's your name?"

"Se-eldra."

"Are you stuttering?"

I sigh. "Seldra suffices."

"A strange name. You are not from here, aren't you? You have such an ancient Earth dialect."

"Oh, really?" I grin in surprise and don't hear anything special in the way I talk. You cannot trick old people.

"You can stay overnight in my home" she just says out of the blue.

"Ehm, what? Why?" Nobody suggests an overnight stay to totally unknown people.

"The smell." Oh ... the deprivation of enough fresh water and the scavenging of the garbage left their traces.

"I cannot hide anything from you, hm?" I say with a grain of irony.

"If you are as old as me then you have already seen everything." That sounds like an allusion. Or like a transition. But before I can say anything she continues: "Before you ask: No, I wasn't born like this. It was an accident ten years ago. I was already too old. The risk I would not survive the surgery was too high for me. They won't get rid of me that quickly."

"Oh, I wasn't going to ..."

"It's okay. Everyone is asking that."

We reach her dormitory house and take the lift to her apartment. The air there is stuffy and it smells like old woman. I help her to bring the shopping goods to her kitchen, where while unloading I see why the bags are so heavy: They contain beer. Much beer. And chocolate.

"I drink beer in the evening, then I don't need dinner" she explains to me her eating habits. I am shocked. Even on Cybertron I didn't eat so one-sided.

"Is everything alright? You don't say anything anymore."

"Yes, everything is fine." I try to make my voice sound normal. She probably hears that. I try to play it over. "I am just surprised how you can transport that much beer."

"Have to, have to."

After unloading she shows me her flat and sends me to the bathroom for washing. When I come into the living room she forces chocolate upon me. "Don't you dare to decline." It's tasty, but I feel like getting diabetes after some bites.

"On Ceres I earned my money with simulations" I explain to her. "If you like I can make you see again with that."

"Ha!" she laughs with shrilling voice. "I only believe it when I see it."

I step behind her, my tail contacts her brain without blocking her muscles or her other senses and I feed a simulation of the environment as it really looks like directly into her visual field. 

Several minutes she stands there in silence and looks at every detail in the room.

"Oh, it looks really dirty here."

Then she steps to the window - where I have to follow - and looks onto the street. She turns to me and looks deep into my soul with her scars. I changed one detail. She doesn't see my tail and I take care that she also doesn't notice it in any other way.

"Well, this is bad luck for you" she finally says. "Now you have to join me every evening when I watch Lovin' Ares if you don't want me to turn you adrift. My favorite telenovela. It's about a Terran girl that moves to Mars and falls in love with a Martian."

I laugh about the similarity to my adventure with Lopez. "Does that happen often?"

"Of course. That's how I came to Mars long ago. Sofie tries to fit into the life on Mars, thereby it shows the differences between Mars and Earth in a funny way. Of course Mars always comes along better in comparison. I swear our government tries to export this series to Earth to attract young girls. Watch out that the same doesn't happen to you."

I laugh again. Too late, I'm already here.

M-426237 brought me into a hall where some scrap was scattered around and ordered me to wait. He went outside. Tired and exhausted I sat down on the ground, but the metal sucked out every bit of warmth from me and made me shiver, so I waited crouched. I felt bad and distracted myself with simulations. Maybe I also dozed away.

After a time that felt like hours the gate opened again. A metal figure with servos fixed to their back stumbled inside, pushed by the kick of a military Decepticon twice that size whose name I didn't know. Could that be - a captured Autobot? He was humanoid, as brown as if someone had mixed together all available colors. He was relatively wide and seemed slow, like a teddy bear. I saw the insignia of the Autobots, but where was this going to?

The Con grew something like an over-sized, electric screw driver and opened the cuffs of the Bot, gave him another kick and pointed a cannon to him. "Repair the human. No tricks, the building is surrounded." Then he left us alone.

The Bot picked himself up and looked around. Them he came to me. "Holy Primus, are you the human that fused with the Allspark?"

Oh, seemed like my reputation spread far. "You can put it like this, I guess."

Excited he asked: "Are the stories true people tell about you? On Earth as human did you beat Rage with nothing but a screwdriver?"

"Oh no." I laughed. "I just tell this to humiliate him." But it would have been cool.

He gives me a servo for greetings. "I'm Patchwork. Medic of the Autobots. As far as I know one of the last ones on Cybertron."

I was expecting him to ask for an autograph any moment. Insecurely I grabbed his servo. "Is it not nasty to touch me, is it?"

"What? No, why?" He thought about that, but it was not important enough to continue with that. "So, what is this about? Did the Decepticons treat you badly?"

"The Doctor tries to get the Allspark out of me, but he is a botcher. Now I cannot transform anymore and he doesn't want to touch my human body."

"Let me see."

Because there is no better place Patchwork transforms his legs into a surgery table - indeed made of metal but with a smile I noticed he heated the surface with his spark. How nice of him. A Con would never do something for me - at least not without a benefit for themselves.

Patchwork grew several instruments and started to examine me. Carefully to not hurt me he inserted the instruments in the barely noticeable slits on my upper body, where the machine parts came out whenever I transformed. I had some more on my arms and my back.

"We made plans to rescue you" he told me. "It would be easy. Because of the Allspark we always know where you are."

"How come?"

"We can detect it. If you are a human, your flesh absorbs a part of the radiation. But when you are a Cybertronian, you're shining through the ether like a flare."

Interesting. That information could be useful for me. "How far exactly?"

"How far away we can detect you? As a human not that far, maybe some Hics. It depends on where you are. As a Cybertronian. Hm ... I heard Megatron had detected the Allspark on Earth back in the days when we searched through the whole universe for it. So maybe by the length of a solar system."

That means it was possible to hide myself as a human. If there was no Con nearby I was relatively safe.

"But Optimus disagreed to get you out. He worries that you might get killed if we try. It's too risky."

I started to splutter. The Cons wanted to kill my human body and save the Allspark, the Bots wanted to destroy the Allspark and save my human body. That was hilarious.

Patchwork looked at me questioning.

"Never mind."

After some examination he said: "This looks as if a complete amateur had worked here."

"Exactly my thought." I grinned and instantly turned serious again. "Can you repair it?"

"Don't worry!" he replied with confidence. "The energon from the Allspark can repair any damage by itself. I see rudiments of regrowing engines, did they also unrig them? You just need to wait and everything will go back to normal. That's like the healing process of humans. Nevertheless I will repair it myself, then you don't have to wait for that long."

He started to work inside of me with some kind of soldering iron. The metal of my body started to heat up.

"Just tell me if it becomes too hot."

When he made a break so I could cool down he asked: "How are you living with the Cons? Do you get along with them?" He pointed to the many small injuries, scratches and old bruises that had turned yellow and fade that had already healed well.

"I try to talk to Megatron to convince him not to wipe out Earth. But he punishes me all the time with arena work. I lose every single fight."

He nods with pity and whispers: "You cannot talk to him. He doesn't let anyone interfere with his plans. The best is you escape as soon as you can. I don't know how, but better you leave Cybertron. It would be the best for everyone. Together we will find a way to the remove the Allspark from you and to destroy it."

I was not convinced. They had tried that back on Earth without success.

Quickly he finished the repair and let me transform for test purpose. With a quiet voice he asked: "You have used the power of the Allspark a couple of times, didn't you?"

I nodded.

"Its energy turns all matter to metal, including your flesh. The more often you use it, the more the transformation progresses."

I gulped. That meant that someday I would end up as complete machine.

He looked into my face. "Don't look so sad, it's great to be a Cybertronian. You can transform into everything and your life is basically endless, as long as you don't rust. I can invite you to a game of asteroid bowling."

He grinned at me friendly. That was infectious. He was so nice.

I smirked. "Actually it was cool until they started to saw me open. Okay, I will consider it when I got rid of the Allspark."

M-426237 looked into the hall. "Are you finally done? I hear you chit-chatting from outside."

Patchwork jumped up and stood straight: "Yes, everything is done, the human is fine, you see?"

He pointed at me and I transformed fluently back and forth.

"I also repaired some fuses, which probably got damaged in a battle. These machine parts that have grown in the human body are very fascinating. If I had a little bit more time ..."

"No, that's enough" M-426237 interrupted him and put Patchwork back in handcuffs. Servocuffs. He called for the big Con, who drove Patchwork with his cannon before him to the entrance.

"I ... I can help you."

"Shut up." They disappeared to the outside.

When I jumped up, M-426237 grabbed me. "Where are you bringing him?"

"He tried to talk you into escaping. That is treachery."

"But he just tried to cheer me up!"

M-426237 sighed. "Just forget about that."

"You don't have an own mechanic. What if you need his help again?"

"Then we'll find another solution."

"That's not fair! He didn't do anything wrong!"

"Just shut up already."

I transformed, freed myself from his grip and jumped to the entrance, where I struggled with the heavy gate and pulled it upwards inch by inch. M-426237 looked annoyed at my doing, the arms crossed in his usual pose.

When I tried to slip through the gap to the outside, the gate fell down again and erased my effort of the last minutes. I was desperate and wanted to cry, but Cybertronians had no tear glands. Humiliated I stepped backwards and searched for another solution. Why did I have to be so weak.

"Are you finally done?" M-426237 asked, but as an answer I jumped up and tried the very same again, this time even less successful, because I was too unmotivated to put in much effort.

I stepped back from the gate again, sat down and stared at the gate in anger.

"Are you done now?"

I mumbled something and nodded downcasted. While I watched M-426237 stepped beside the gate. Looked at me. And gave the control console a strike, whereupon the gate opened by itself.

How could I have overlooked it all the time.

I ran outside and searched for Patchwork, but neither him nor the other Con were to be seen anywhere, so I finally abandoned the search.

Even today, over 300 years later I think back to him. Patchwork, this sweet robot, my only friend in those world where everyone else hated me. This cinnamon roll, I haven't even seen him grow a weapon when they took him away. It was just unfair.


	9. Mars 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Margret sends Seldra shopping.

The next morning I wake up on the couch in the living room - I assured Margret that this is completely unnecessary, but she forced me to sleep on the couch. I'm sick as a dog and I feel so tired and crushed as if I had worked in the arena for the whole night. The light burns in my eyes. I hear Margret's shrill laughing and smell stale beer, disgusting.

"You cannot bear anything, toots."

Out of sympathy I had joined her evening routine and drank a beer for dinner. To adapt to the local customs, to put it like that. A single, damn beer. Something is wrong with my hybrid metabolism. I thought the machine parts would process the alcohol, but I was wrong. Instead I have to pull myself together, so my numbed human brain won't give the wondering machine processor nonsense tasks for calculation all the time.

I sit myself up and hold my head. The light causes headache. My empty stomach burns hungry and I grab a piece from the open chocolate package on the table.

"In a moment you're going to buy yourself something nutritious for dinner."

"Oh, thanks."

"That's pure act out of self-interest. Yesterday I could barely see anything of the series. Everything was blurry and at the second half the screen turned black."

"Oh ... eh ... For me it looked sharp. Probably I ripped of some cables in my clumsiness."

"Who is still using cables nowadays?"

Yes, I see, the humans do everything wireless. I could listen to what the neighbors are doing if I wanted to. When did humanity decide to open up everything to Cybertronian listeners? Are they not scared? Is it on purpose? Well, maybe it makes no difference. "You cannot make everything wireless."

I for myself will watch out to send anything into the ether as long as I'm not sure who listens. Without own requests data only reaches me more or less by chance. Enough to decide that I'm not interested in the TV program of the neighbors, their weather forecast or their private messages.

"When you were fallen asleep I heard a stranger sneaking through the flat, but when I went looking, nobody was there. Your machine seems to be broken, toots. You should take a look at that."

Oh ... when I fall asleep in a simulation and my brain sends data from my subconsciousness to the simulation, anything possible can happen. Like with normal dreams sometimes I remember, rather seldom. Or I get a subtle idea when I suddenly wake up on a foreign planet with a swampy, red ground and strange blue and purple plants and notice, that it's a simulation, which I had never initiated consciously. No idea, who this man was, I could only guess. If I actually know him and my brain hadn't just combined several persons to a new one.

"Ehm, he's something like a control routine."

I try my best to forget everything from my former life on Earth. But some memories keep on living in my subconsciousness. I can't do anything but wait until they fade on their own. 

I sat at the beach, looked onto the sea and thought. Machines physically stood head and shoulders over humans. Their hard hull made them nearly invincible for fists. They did not feel pain as easily and less intense. If a human lost an arm, bad luck, contrary you could repair a machine. It was so unfair. Being half a machine I still had the same sense of pain and my human flesh restrained the space of the machine parts. Megatron was right - I was so weak. I needed to find another way to claim my place in this world.

I stood up and went into the water while I let some clouds appear. When I lost the ground under my feet and started to swim, they casted shadows over me. The wind blew stronger. The waves noticeable lifted me up and down. "A few clouds" was understating - now heavy rain splattered from the dark clouds onto me. Ha ha, rain had no effect on me, I was already wet. That's what I thought before it hit me in the eyes all the time and ran into my nose when I wanted to breath. But when the waves grew so high that they overturned above me, that was my smallest problem. Quickly I paddled to the surface, back to air and rain.

When the next wave buried me before I could take a breath and disorientated I looked for a shimmer of light of the surface I realized one thing: You could not defeat the storm. You could only survive it. You could do your best and wait until it was over.

The next wave buried me again. Around me I only saw dark water. As long as I lived I could fight. It was too early to give up. I knew what I had to do.

And just before I lost my consciousness and was thrown out of the simulation I added: And when everything was not enough, you could at least ruin its day.

I go the way backwards which I remember from yesterday and find the shop. Somehow I have expected a super market full of busy working, instead I'm the only customer and step to the counter, behind which nondescript cans are piled. Nobody is there.

After some minutes I push the bell. "I would like the things from this list" I tell the employee who just comes and I raise Margret's pad.

He looks at me weirded. "You can get the things delivered, you know that? Everyone does that. It's more convenient."

I feel uneasy. Actually I want to integrate and behave like everyone else, but Margret has sent me and yesterday she also came from shopping and that was no problem?

"Ehm, it's for Margret, she buys here regularly. She sent me."

The man rolls his eyes. "Then tell her that she can get the things delivered, that would be much easier. Maybe she listens to you."

"I'm sorry, I'm only for a visit." As if she would listen to me. They should tell her themselves.

While he sends the list to the system and packs the things that get delivered by the assembly line I start to grin. Oh, I understand. Margret goes shopping by herself on purpose, to cause them effort. She made me her accomplice without my knowing. How perfidious.

I had one of my usual sittings with the doctor. After he had blocked my transformation ability last time he seemed to be really careful and reserved. He looked at some machine parts without changing anything. I asked: "Doc, why do I not grow strong weapons?"

He answered: "The technologies develop in the youth. You are too old. You won't become anything useful anymore."

That made no sense to me. What did old mean in my case? Regarding my human body? What did he know about humans? Technically speaking I was a Con only for a few months. "But I grew two weak weapons and jet engines."

"So what? I have better things to do than caring about that."

He was crazy. I considered it important to understand my hybrid body to get to the Allspark. But for him only the direct way counted. Actually I didn't know what was important to him, he just seemed to make some nonsense. Maybe it was me, but I didn't think so. It really made no sense what he said.

"How do you know that the technologies develop in the youth and they're not born with the rudiments?"

"Don't ask such stupid questions."

So, what was it. Was the thing so complicated that he didn't want to put in the effort to overcharge my human brain with all the facts? Or did he just shut me up if he didn't know something? I had a strong opinion about that. I needed to find the answers by myself. 

I look at the strange things Margret sent me to buy: protein powder, vitamin liquid, self-raising tuna imitation - is that a food store or a pharmacy?

Back at home when we clear out the shopped goods and sort them into the shelves Margret asks casually: "I hope you like tuna."

"Why?" I ask and play the surprised one. "Here is no tuna."

"You cool card" she says, "where shall we take the water from to raise all kinds of fish? Where shall the micro organisms and water plants come from they need? Where shall we put the ponds? And why should we waste so much space and put in all the effort if we can just produce the fish ourselves?"

I don't know what else to say. Probably it really makes more sense this way.

"It's alright, toots" Margret adds. "You're still spoiled from Earth."

Is fish still produced in the usual way on Earth or did I talk total nonsense? I don't know.

When Margret asks me what I'm planning to do today I reply: "I deal with some formalities, so I can offer simulations for money again."

"Have fun, toots."

Because cash is not in use anymore here I see no other way to go legally on my trip back home. I can still use the illegal way if the legal one doesn't work.


	10. The Arena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra experiences the arena on Cybertron from another side.

Without traumatizing incidents I left the lab in best health and intact and transformed to my human mode. As usually outside M-426237 waited for me.

"Tell me, why are you letting me run around freely?" I asked him.

He answered: "You're allowed to go wherever you small feet carry you and from where you return when the Doctor calls for you."

"That ... is not the answer to my question?"

He just replied: "I don't question my orders."

My assumption was that they had no idea how to care for a human they had imprisoned, so they let me run around and hoped I would take care for myself.

"Okay" I said and decided: "Then let's go to the arena." I wanted to see it from the other perspective for once, I meant from the view of the audience. While I usually took the way to the arena flying and the way back only half conscious, still I found the way on my own. M-426237 followed me in silence and without emotions. As long as I didn't do anything annoying he usually didn't care.

Many people went to the arena, so it was easy to find. I found it weird to see it from the outside. When I went in and stepped into the viewer ranks I felt like I was about to be thrown in any moment, as if I was attacked any moment. I was small and stayed in the shadows at the side, so no-one would see me.

But M-426237's job had gotten around. Some Cons turned round to him and shortly after discovered me, too, starred at me for some seconds and then turned back to the happenings in the arena. At the moment a clumsy Con with rocket stacks fought a silver, more flexible robot who shot glowing bullets in high curves that just lied flat.

"What exactly is happening here?" I asked M-426237.

He answered the head sideways turned away from me, a common sign that he found the question annoying, but not enough to do anything against it. "We train here. The walls make that passer-bys and other buildings are not damaged. There is not much space to maneuver, as it might happen in a real fight. Also you can watch others fighting more easily here."

The two Cons in the arena agreed on a draw after the clumsy one could not hit the other one with his rockets and the other one had covered the ground with his glowing bullets, which the first one who stood still just ignored. Friendly they bumped their fists against each other so it made a loud "clong", then they left the arena. A big Con that reminded me of a crossover of a street sweeper and a garbage chute, drove in vehicle mode into the hall and pushed lying bullet leftovers and scrap parts into the Maw.

Watching to learn from the fights sounded like a good idea. With tension I awaited the next fight. When the cleaner vehicle had left, a dark one with green rhombuses and a helicopter with three rotors stepped into the arena. They fought with some kind of plasma cannon and a machine gun. That looked thrilling, still I was a little bit disappointed. I looked over the rows of viewers and only saw humanoid robots with heavy weapons. I saw no-one from which I could learn. Nobody who looked like speed and shiftiness.

"Is here anyone who is like me?" I asked.

M-426237 answered: "A weakling without weapons, without any useful functions? No."

I ignored the side blow. "I mean, anyone who sticks to shiftiness. Someone like Ravage?"

He seemed to think for a moment. Maybe what he should answer, maybe if he should answer at all. "There are some with animal modes. They have better things to do."

What a disappointment. Then I needed to come up with something else to improve my fighting abilities. At least once I wanted to win a fight, only to show them. Winning once, that was something. Or at least a draw.

"How do the fighters find each other?"

"Now there are free training hours and anyone who has a sparring partner can train. Or who has to settle a fight. Sometimes there are planned events, you need to have a look at the plan in the entrance area for that." He sounded a bit odd. What was that supposed to mean. It sounded like "I don't have time for that, because I need to take care of you."

But that gave me an idea. How about I would train here with the others? Maybe I could train with someone who was not about to beat me up.

I asked: "Can I challenge anyone for a fight?"

M-426237 said: "You are the last one to do that. You can ask nicely, like it suits a civilized creature."

Two Cons nearby left the tribune to go down while I heard one say to the other: "You dick, I will totally kick your ass."

M-426237 showed no reaction, but I assumed to know what was going on in his processor and giggled quietly. Still he didn't react.

I simply went to a bright blue-gray Decepticon some rows afar who looked a bit smaller and weaker than the ones I had seen in the arena. He was as high as my chest, had relatively short legs and looked as if he was wearing a knapsack on his back. I asked him: "Hello, do you like to train with me?"

He starred at me for some seconds. Then he laughed tinny and dabbed the Con beside him. "Ey, Conmother challenged me for a fight."

"What, really?"

They looked at me and laughed.

I got pissed. "What's to laugh about? I'll beat you up."

They laughed again. One after another more Cons nearby noticed that something was going on and looked to us. I heard the quiet clicking of metal on metal when M-426237 behind me face-palmed.

"Conmother, we have seen you fighting often enough. You are no challenge. You have no weapons and you're just jumping around. The only challenge you provide is to catch you and to take your prattling."

"Yes, exactly. You're just jumping around and hiding yourself."

"You don't even have real weapons. Come back if you know some stuff." They laughed again. The other Cons who had heard us had less humor and shook their heads in an act of foreign shame, before they turned their attention back to the happenings in the arena.

I wasn't done yet. "But every time Megatron throws me into the arena someone happily comes to mess with me. So, where do I find one who wants to fight me?"

The small one answered in a voice of heavy discussion: "You don't seem to be aware that we are acting on Megatron's command, are you? See, Conmother, let me explain how it works here."

He stood up from his seat and pointed with a theatrical speaker pose to the happening in the arena. "Here, currently the two happily knock each other the screws out of the head. Assume exactly in this moment Megatron decides to punish you. I have no idea, what he punishes you for, actually I don't care. We get the order to teach you a lesson and you fly into here while the fight takes place, okay? Can you imagine that? What then happens is that the two are interrupting their fight, folding in the weapons which Megatron has forbidden us to use against you and beat you up, okay? As I said, we have seen you several times and you are boring. So we are sitting here, make the best out of the situation and wait for the normal fight to continue, okay? Which not always happens if you have bored the fighters enough that they are not in the mood anymore. Got it?"

He sat down again on his place. "So, do us a favor and be nice. You're not getting beaten up and we don't have to watch you getting beaten up."

Man, that made me so angry to hear that. So in their optical sensors I was a weakling as well as a bore and they didn't even want to give me the chance to improve. That wasn't fair. Did I have to force them to train with me? I ... I was so angry that I didn't know what else to say.

M-426237 waited patiently, at least I didn't hear anything coming from his direction.

When I was just on the way to a higher row of seats so I didn't need to hear the talking and giggling of the Cons anymore, the second one turned around to me again.

"Hey, Conmother. Small question. Would you please not provoke Megatron today evening? Shockwave has a play-fight against his partner Driller. We absolutely want to see that."

"Who is Shockwave?"

The Con stared at me for some moments. Then he laughed and turned away.

M-426237 took me to the side. "Shockwave is one of the highest-ranked Decepticons and takes his orders directly from Megatron" he explained to me. "He is very strong and a role model for many of us. Should you one day meet him in person - which I don't think will ever happen, because he has better things to do - pay him the needed respect and knee down. You don't need to make a bad impression to him, too."

Interesting. What time was it now? That should be easy to find out when I had a look on the plan on the way out. M-426237 had said now were the training times, besides I expected the plan to show the current time anyway.

When I had seen enough I went on my way out followed by M-426237. "Interesting" I said in hindsight about what I had learned today.

M-426237 noticed: "The life here is more beautiful if you don't provoke all the time."

"May I remind you that I provoke, because you protracted me here? Because no-one takes me serious, no-one listens to me, because you tried to saw me open and you are trying out some nonsense on me all the time?"

M-426237 replied dryly and without emotions like always: "Because you took the Allspark and don't want to give it back."

"I don't want your race to perish. But firstly I cannot simply give the Allspark back and secondly according to your plan you want to use it to wipe out humanity, so I don't see why I would even try to hand it back."


	11. Mars 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra struggles with the buerocracy on Mars.

I go to the bank, or better to say their company building and register at the reception. "Hello. I like to open an account."

The lady looks at me weirded. "Why don't you do that online?"

"That didn't work for me. The process demands a residence, but I'm only here for a visit."

Without the residence I didn't even manage to create the account myself. The system just removed it. Somehow on Mars everything is linked. Also I can't be more intrusive as long as I don't know if my action will draw the attention of someone I don't want to inform about my presence.

"Please give me your name."

"Se"eldra Sadr'khor."

I have thought for a while about how to best challenge the IT. Whether I should write my first name with a degree symbol or an emoticon, but then I decided for a classic. Beside that the transcription of Cybertronian language is not trivial. I don't know which symbol best represents that sound. I spell the name out for her.

She looks at me wondering. "You've got quotation marks in the name?"

"No, that's a skurtje, I just write quotation marks, because your alphabet doesn't have that letter."

She doesn't find anything with that name in the system.

"Then try it with an apostrophe or a hyphen. I don't know what the current transcription rules say, they change all the time.

How funny to see her face. Next time I should try it with a dot or an asterisk. Maybe the system uses a wildcard search.

"I don't find you in the system. Since when are you on Mars?"

Does she want to know when I arrived or when my ship was supposed to land? "I don't know exactly. Last week I guess."

With that information she still doesn't find me in the system. "Please go to the inward authority. For any reason your arrival was not submitted to the system. Without your identification and confirmation of your main residence we can't create your account, I'm very sorry."

I thank her for her effort and leave.

After running around between different authorities I stand in front of another counter. Slowly I get annoyed.

"So ... to earn money I need an account. To create an account I need a residence. To get a residence I either need a birth certificate or a migration certificate. For that I need an inward travel permission. Which I don't get, because the ship I arrived with had an accident, correct?"

"With your ID you can apply for your inward travel permission subsequently. Let it be sent to you from Earth."

"And how would I contact them without money?"

"Just take your pad."

"I lost that on the ship!"

Of course I only have the fake ID on Ceres. But why do they have to make everything complicated here? I just want to go to work, contributing to society, so I don't expect such details to make an obstacle.

Whatever, I will get my will sooner or later. For today the office hours end and I go on my way back to Margret.

After dinner I serve my new, most loyal customer in front of the TV, if you can call the image that directly emerges on the wall like that.

"That is the episode where Sofie receives a message about the burial of one of her three fathers and travels to Earth, her favorite father. She wishes she would have spent more time with him and considers to stay on Earth, so she can visit his grave. On Mars the dead are processed to fertilizer, here are no graves. Then she is confronted with the complicated paperwork that is necessary on Earth to get the permission to have a child, while on Mars she can just have as many as she wants. Finally this makes her return to Mars. Whoops, I spoiled the end."

The Earth has changed a lot. I barely recognize it. That makes me sad. Probably I won't know my home any more.

"Is there an episode that explains the formalities on Mars if you want to pick up a job?"

"You migrate and commit your life to Mars then they will take care of all formalities for you."

Hmpf. I just want to earn money and continue my trip to Earth, not migrate.

"Megatron."

He turned around to me. "Where is M-426237? He's supposed to take care that you don't disturb me."

"He is a-f-k."

I could nearly see how he searched his storage of knowledge about humanity for that expression.

"What?"

"Did you ever consider to just let humanity live, because you have better things to do than wiping them out?"

He nearly dropped his jar. "Better things to do? You think you can judge how I spend my time most wisely?"

Actually I wanted to suggest to just wait until the humans destroy each other, they had proven enough potential for that after all. But somehow ... that sounded too rational at the moment. "Well, somehow yes. I'm on Cybertron for several month and you didn't get any more close to the Allspark. Indeed I think that you could try ..."

"You don't have anything to decide!"

I tried to hide my grin when he grabbed me and threw me away in a high curve. After all I hadn't gotten used to it and screamed high-pitched all the way until I transformed, hit the ground in the arena and laid still after some rolling. Then I got up and beat the dust from my case.

I looked over a thirty feet tall humanoid Con with a single big, red optical sensor and two horns on his head, also a Con that looked like a giant worm who could dig metro tunnels. That had to be Shockwave and Driller.

I heard annoyed moaning from the ranks of the audience.

Shockwave tilted his head. I thought it was his version of a tired smile. "Then I will leave the field to your tormentors." He turned to the exit.

I shouted: "Hey, stay here, I just came to beat you up."

He turned halfway back to me. "Megatron orders that I leave the field."

"Because he is worried about you. That I destroy you. That would be so embarrassing."

He replied: "You don't have any weapons. You couldn't scratch me, even if I would just stand still."

"You bet? You would be surprised."

He showed no reaction, except that he shortly turned away, said: "waste of time" and went on.

I ran to Shockwave, stood in his way, stood on my hind legs to have a better look and made up a plan about how to best climb on him.

He looked down to me. "Out of my way, human."

I jumped forward, my claws found support at overlapping armor parts, I climbed quickly up - watched by his big red optical sensor - to his shoulder, where the tip of my tail attached to his neck, where the biggest bundle of cables was located, splitted up and connected to every single cable. I disconnected the electricity flow and his body just kept standing how it was.

I remembered what I had learned from the Doc. When I recalled correctly I needed to give shocks to these places.

"Totally damaged!" I scolded theatrically and ripped off a piece of the hull.

The audience went through a rainbow of emotions, which I had never thought machines were capable of. First they had been angry about my appearing, then they were embarrassed and scared when I challenged Shockwave, now they couldn't decide if they were surprised or entertained.

Beside me Driller lifted himself up threatening. One tentacle from his head shot forward - I was prepared and dived behind Shockwave, without loosing contact to his neck and ripped of another part from his leg.

Now all tentacles tried to grab me.

I climbed up on Shockwave and jumped onto Driller. He reared up.

Shit, where did he have his neck, where were all the cables?

The tentacles nearly closed me in, I needed to loose the grip to dodge.

Too bad I had to release Shockwave, who was functioning again. "To me, Driller" he shouted.

Before I could wonder what that meant, Driller bucked and threw me directly to Shockwave.

Oh, shit.

Skilled Shockwave caught me at my neck and with the other hand grabbed my tail close to the tip, so I couldn't reach him anymore with it.

"Beg me for pardon" he demanded. "Now."

"I kick your ass."

Did I see a moment of surprise when he didn't do anything for the fraction of a second?

"You shall pay dearly for that." He squeezed my neck so the metal bent under his grip.

"Eh ... Ah ..." I tried to remind him of the Allspark, but couldn't make a sound.

Probably he got the idea anyway and stopped, then he ripped of my tail and throw me away carelessly. He leaned over for the parts I had ripped off and put them back with a clicking noise.

"Don't you think I'm done with you. I will inform Megatron about this." He stepped onto Driller and disappeared with him into the ground of the arena.

Well, that didn't went too bad.

I tried to get up and fell down instantly because of missing balance. I tried it again with the same result. Then I decided to crawl to my tail and pushed myself forward while I left a dragged track in the sand.

A few laughters from the ranks of the audience told me that most of them weren't interested anymore in what happened here. They had seen me in humiliating situations very often.

Suddenly M-426237 picked me up - I hadn't noticed him. "You don't make any friends with this behavior."

I wanted to tell him that everybody here hated me anyway no matter what I did, but still I couldn't make any noise. Then I thought: Well, then let's turn the tables.

"Why would I want to be friends with you?" I sent to him wirelessly. Everyone else nearby would also hear it. "We have totally different hobbies and opinions." They should put in effort, not me.

He clamped me under one arm, grabbed the tail with the other and carried me outside.

Just when we left the building I received a message from Megatron: "M-426237. If you don't bring the human under your control, you will bear the consequences."

M-426237 stopped and replied: "Yes, Lord Megatron."

He stayed for a second in a pose of self-abasement. When he started to move again he said: "I thought humans were beings of empathy. Can you bear it with your human conscience to put me into danger?"

I answered with a scratchy and fragmented voice, because Shockwave had damaged my voice processor: "I probably lost it when I became half a Decepticon."

"If you don't follow our plan you are no Decepticon."

"I'm not against your plan, only against some details."

"I don't notice anything of that."

No idea what that was supposed to mean. From my point of view the characteristic traits of the Decepticons were inborn, inbuilt.


	12. Mars 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra wins the fight against buerocracy with Margret's help.

"I just need a bank account so I can work" I lament. "So I can pay my flight to Earth. This cannot be that hard."

"Why didn't you tell me before. Give me my pad."

I lean forward to the table and give her her pad, wondering what she is planning.

While the device reads out loud to her in such a high speed what it was showing, which I could only decrypt with electronical help she navigates though some menus.

Then she holds it to me. "Put your hand here, toots."

I put my hand on the marked area and wait with tension for the solution, what this was all about.

"I created an account where you have full permissions."

"Oh, thanks. That's registered on your name, right?"

"Yes, there is no other way. You can also pay the trip with your body if you don't trust me."

She was just teasing me again.

"Oh, I don't make enough fertilizer for that".

She laughs shrilling.

I make an agreement with Margret that I'm allowed to serve my customers in her home. I offer her a part of my earnings for bed and food, but she says if I offerher money ever again, she throw me out. So I just say thanks and leave it like that.

I'm just supervising a customer in a simulation when Margret comes into the living room. "Did he take off his shoes?"

I think quickly, because I cannot remember - I didn't pay attention to that - then I look down. She can smell it, can't she? It is no use to lie. "No?"

"Then do it!" I bow down and take them off.

The mornings I spend in any authorities again and try to understand the process how I can work legally, that means how I can pay taxes, for which I probably need to register a business, for which I need to fulfill any other requirements that lead me into long chains of processes that end in garden paths. Here I am with my high developed biological brain and my flexible machine processor and still in the face of the complicated bureaucracy on Mars I'm nothing more than a mud snail with a calculator. Ridiculous.

I talked to Megatron again, gave him any of my meaningless arguments, but this time in the middle of the movement of grabbing me he stopped and formed a fist in hard self-control.

"No" he said. "This time I will not let you provoke me."

What was that? Megatron and self-control? Was my career as most annoying Decepticon in the history already over?

I asked what first came into my mind: "What's wrong with you? Did you start a therapy? Did your therapist prescribe you new medication?"

He nearly exploded and shot forward.

I exposed the jet engines in a pathetic try to escape, still in human mode. Megatron was faster and more shifty than me. He grabbed me and threw me away.

I span through the air, tried to stabilize my trajectory, which I managed to do for a short time, but then the arena already came into range and it was time for landing. I transformed on the first impact on the ground and flew without control against the next wall.

When I was about to sort my limbs and free myself from the wall, I already heard someone sighing: "Oh, Primus." Wait, this wasn't the wall of the arena.

I looked around and grinned. "What's this? Paintball?"

They had deployed some cute houses in the arena. Two teams marked with colors stood across each other in the corners. Well, too bad they wouldn't.

"Too bad you need to postpone that. I would have loved to see this." I had just prepared myself to draw out my fight as long as possible.

The sounds of complete disappointment were music to my ears. But I had laughed too early.

"Wait, I take care of that." One of the Cons - I thought he was doing organizational stuff in the arena - disappeared into the staff area.

Shortly after a Con came out who looked like a fifteen feet tall metal spider who crawled to me with high speed.

I prepared myself to dodge, but the Con didn't grow weapons. Even more, the closer it came, the slower it got. I starred at it. Then he was directly over me, his long thin legs stood around me like poles. What was the point?

While I was still wondering they drew together, until the feet touched each other directly below me. Oh, a cage. The Con lifted me and carried me out of the arena.

Behind the arena the orga-Con stood and said: "Just put her here until it's her turn."

Ah, I understood. They were not punishing me now, but later. At least they thought they would.

I whispered to the spider: "You better let me out or I show you a world of terror."

The spider ignored me.

I stretched my tail upwards and contacted its system. I didn't manage to make it open, but until the beginning of my punishment it had to watch "Never gonna give you up" in an infinite loop.

That was the first and the last time someone tried to be my prison.

"What simulations can you make?"

"Everything I can imagine and what I know better than you" I reply with a shy smile.

He takes out his pad and shows me pictures of his house.

Before I ask what I should be doing with them he asks: "Here's where I live. Can you show me how it would look like if we would fill this valley with 10 trillion gallons of water?"

The man explains to me that he is terraformer and works to make Mars better inhabitable.

"It's not my business, but ... can't you produce such simulations yourself?"

"Actually yes, but it's something different to step into them and interact with them as if they were real."

Soon I realize that the requests of the Martians are fundamentally different from the Belter ones. People here come to me with desires, imaginations, dreams. They want that I show them their goals so they will work harder for them. They want to see meadows, forests, beaches, oceans. Or buildings and space ships. One was planning a living project and gets a better idea from me about the result, to check if his plans make sense. On Ceres I felt like an entertainment machine. Here I get the impression that I contribute to something important.

I move drowsy and open my tired eyes. I'm in Margret's lumber-room. Oh, and there is my customer - oh no. I must have fallen asleep while simulating. The man is throwing a tantrum. Quickly I get him back.

"That was about time! How dare you! You should be ashamed of yourself."

Oh well. What happened? I cannot remember my dream. What time is it? How long was I away? Hm, about two hours. That meant nothing for a dream simulation.

"I'm sorry. Of course you don't need to pay."

"Pay? You can be lucky if I don't call the police. You are disgusting. I never want to see you again."

I stare after him as he goes and smashes the doors behind him. I feel bad and insecure. What did he see? How bad was it? I rarely remember my dreams, I don't know what happens there. Was it something with Cybertron? Was it something kinky as the people on Ceres demanded from me? Something from my time on Earth? This uncertainty eats me up.

Margret steps to the door of the lumber-room. "Toots, is everything fine?"

"I fell asleep at work." I still feel like sleeping and rub my face to get rid of the tiredness, but it doesn't help. I work too much. "This shouldn't have happened."

"Doesn't the simulation just continue if you fall asleep?"

Oh, now I have to make up some explanations again.

"Of course, but I still have to pay attention in case the customer calls for me. He was in the simulation unsupervised for the last few hours. This mustn't happen."

I try to calm myself down. Maybe he didn't see anything bad and he is just angry, because he didn't like the simulation and I didn't react to his requests.

"You shouldn't work that much" Margret recommends. "I would give you some caffeine pills, but I don't have a high opinion of this new modern stuff. Come. I left you some dinner."

Again I messed up the landing in the arena and rolled clumsy over the ground until I laid still. I needed to work on that.

I got up. And looked at one Con after the other, who already awaited me with raised weapons. Today I had prepared a nice surprise for them.

"Nah" I said and transformed to human mode. "I disagree."

A lot of surprised optical sensors watched me when I went toward the exit. Psyched whispering started - maybe they didn't dare to transmit any messages. Maybe because of me, maybe because of Megatron.

"Ehm, the human transformed."

"I see that, too."

"Are we allowed to attack?"

"We must not kill the human you idiot."

"But we got the permission, because our weapons are not deadly."

"Hey, stay here and face me!"

I repeated: "Nah, I disagree. I don't accept the punishment."

An impact pulled me off the ground. In affect I had transformed out of self-defense. Shit. Now they knew how they could force me to transform.

They attacked me together. Circled around me. I considered to make them attack each other by dodging cleverly.

Then I looked at one of my attackers. I had already seen him somewhere.

"Ah, I remember you. You were standing on the tribune and laughed at me when I grew my weapons. You prod my attacker."

"Yes, haha, that was funny."

That was it. He deserved what I was about to do to him. "I recommend you to give up or else you will regret it."

He laughed and attacked. He exposed his sword. Or more like a club. I sometime wasn't sure what some weapon was for.

I dodged the projectiles of the others by constantly analyzing in which direction their weapons were aiming and I was gone before they fired. A few small projectiles hit me in the back, nevertheless the group now decided to switch to close range weapons.

I kept myself near my chosen victim and let them push me back. I took a heavy blow and flew backwards against the wall.

He stepped toward me. "You are so ridiculous." He fixed me at the wall and stroke out for the next blow.

I transformed into human mode.

Out of surprise or disgust of my human body he hesitated. Especially because without hibernation blood started running from my nose. I caught it in my hand.

"Did you know that human blood is heavily oxidizing?" I threw the blood onto him. It spoiled his case and dropped into his hull.

I saw colorful spots in front of my eyes, so I transformed again and jumped away as long as he was distracted.

Quickly he caught himself, got angry and followed me. The circle closed around me.

They beat me up until I was totally dented. My victim laughed. That would be the last time he laughed about me.


	13. Mars 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The buerocracy prepares another attack.

I stretch myself awakening on the couch and feel as if I have woken up from a coma. As if I have slept very long and deep. I look at the watch. Why is it already 9 a.m.? Shit. I overslept my appointment in the authority.

I get up and look around. Margret sits in the armchair, is watching TV and solves crosswords.

"Good morning, heavy sleeper" she greets me.

"Morning."

I go to the kitchen corner and search for something that works as breakfast.

"You slept long" Margret reminds me. "I'm surprised how a grown-up person like you can sleep ten, eleven, twelve hours. Are you sick?"

I don't react. She is just teasing me again. Probably.

"You overslept your appointment at the authority."

"I know. I will go later to clear things up." With that the case is closed for me.

I hear the talking of her crossword again. Then she says: "Because you have time today you can help me cleaning up the home."

I sigh. "Again the bathroom? The toilet?"

She laughs as an answer.

This time I was nearly proud of me. I found the most inelegant way to land in the arena, stumbled over my own feet, tried to catch the fall with a roll and hit my head on a wreckage part when I got up.

I picked myself up and looked for my opponents. Two Cons a little bit bigger than me looked at me irresolutely. They had exposed their swords. They looked at each other and than at me.

"Now what?" I asked. "Are you attacking me or not?"

"After what you did to Deadpole? No thanks."

"He has a big rust stain on his chassis that he can't get rid of."

I gave them a friendly smile. "I only did that, because he had laughed at me. Now I'm here to accept my punishment and I promise I won't do the same to you. You can shoot at me, then you are in safe distance from my human blood."

They shortly looked at each other again. "That's not worth it."

"Exactly. Just go away." They radioed to the arena management. I heard them discuss about it. Megatron had ordered that I got punished, but nobody wanted to execute the order.

The arena management sent their official decision: "Conmother, leave the arena."

I answered: "You received Megatron's command, didn't you?"

They replied: "Conmother, leave the arena directly and without further discussion."

"And if I refuse?"

I looked around for someone who dared to mess with me. I got curious, what would happen next. Would there be another brave Con to face me? Would they continue with the usual arena fight and ignore me?

"Let me, I take care of that", suddenly someone called out in the audience. Today was my lucky day. It was the small one with the knapsack. He jumped over the handrail into the arena.

I was eager to see what he could do and prepared myself. Without another word he pulled out some kind of remote control from his knapsack, which stayed connected to him via cables, pointed it to me and pressed a button.

I transformed into my human mode. Surprised I looked at my hands, where the metal retracted from without me doing so. Then I looked at the Con again.

"You ... seem to prefer bare fists?" I wondered why he would want me to be in this mode.

But he said: "That was just a test. Are you leaving the arena now?"

I laughed. Splendid. No, I wanted to see what else he was capable of. I transformed and jumped toward him.

He pressed another button. I froze in the middle of the jump, landed in the same pose on the ground and slid a bit through the sand due to my inertia.

I tried to give my machine body any commands, but my limbs didn't move. How inconvenient. I was totally helpless.

With small steps the Con came to me. He crouched down before me to look into my face. I didn't know what to expect.

"Don't you remember me, mother?" he asked.

My voice processor still worked. "You were in the audience lately. I challenged you. You declined and laughed at me."

"I recently grew out of the proto group. The one you visit regularly. You switched off my brother before he would have disassembled me. Still no idea?"

I wanted to shake my head, but I needed to say "no" instead. I had done that a lot.

"I've always wondered how you did that. You, half a human and not capable of anything. One day I could do it myself. I'm disappointed how weak you are. It's bitter that our species dies because of someone like you. Not in honor in the fight against an over-mighty opponent or something."

He called out to the others: "You can now bring her away."

And quietly to me: "You can do on your own what we tell you or we make you. It's your decision."

I chuckled. That was so funny. I wanted to raise them so they wouldn't become dangerous, so I gave them barely energy. And what were they doing? They develop energy saving methods to become dangerous.

One of the other Cons had come over and grabbed my tail to drag me through the arena and clapped the little one's shoulder. "Thanks, Bolt."

"No problem."

Bolt was too stiff and had to run the long way to get back to his seat. When we had about half of the length of the arena between us I felt how the effect of his remote control faded.

When I moved at the exit, the Con terrified let my tail go and retreated. Oh no, I wasn't done yet.

I sent directly to Megatron: "Lord Megatron, the people are disobeying your command. Nobody wants to punish me."

Now in the arena everyone froze and it became deadly silent. Everyone turned around to me. Had she just really done that? Yes, I had.

Then some kind of panic broke out. The Cons in the audience tribunes left and went to the safety of the back rooms and ramps.

Already the angrily roaring Megatron jet arrived, dove transforming through the roof and landed in the arena. Now I thought I knew why they didn't repair it.

"Decepticons!" he shouted and stared at everyone one after the other with his red glowing optical sensors. "I gave you a command!" He shouted to the room of the arena management. "What's going on here?"

One of the managers carefully looked out and said: "Lord Megatron, the human fights unfairly. Nobody wants to mess with her."

"Unfair? Unfair!? Are you Decepticons or what? Do I have to punish her myself?"

Awkward silence was the answer. He turned again from one to the other.

"Human, where are you?"

I raised my voice from the entrance area. "Here."

"Step forward and take your punishment."

"Nah."

I exposed my jet engines and escaped to the outside.

If I were in human mode my heart would be in my mouth. Megatron was faster and more agile than me. His detour over the roof to get out gave me some fractions of a second. I dove to the lower levels, so he wouldn't see me instantly. I heard his angry roaring far above me and I disappeared into the labyrinth of Cybertron's intestines. There I searched for a fitting place to hide.

"Human, where are you, come here, I scrap you."

"Here, in the old deposit hall."

When he came in I let myself fall down from the ceiling, where I had hold myself with my claws - after I clumsily crashed into the ceiling when landing. But I had underestimated his speed and missed him. Oh, shit.

He turned around. Saw me and slashed at me.

I jumped between his legs forward, ran around between his feet when he tried to turn to me and climbed upward at his back. With relieve I reached his neck and sank him into a simulation. 

In the afternoon again I go on my way to the registry office. I'm the only person who goes there personally and I go to the reception. "Hello, Se'eldra Sadr'khor, I had an appointment today morning which I missed unfortunately."

She stares at me for a second. What's wrong, do I have dirt in my face? I look questioning.

"Please, take a seat for a moment." She grabs her pad.

"Thanks" I reply. "If I cause too much inconvenience we can make a new appointment. I promise I will be there on time."

"That won't be necessary. Please wait a moment. Someone will take care of you."

Oh, what a service. If she would have always been that helpful I could have spared myself a lot of running.

Currently I'm not in the mood for simulations, so I only put some music on my ears while I wait.

When two police officers step in and come to me, I suddenly shut off the music.

"Seldra Sadrkhor. You are arrested because of moonlighting. Do not resist."

I'm truly surprised. Would they have arrested me earlier it would have also spared me from a lot of running.

"I swear, I wanted to pay my taxes, I just didn't found out how. The bureaucracy on Mars is inscrutable."

"Noted. Hands to the back."

Hand cuffs, ridiculous. I let them lead me off.

At the next possibility I request a phone call. I call Margret.

She instantly picks up. Probably she is solving crosswords at the moment.

"Hello Margret. I'm not coming home today. The government arrested me because they fear I'm an ugly alien critter who came to destroy the world."

She laughs shrilling like a witch from a fairy tale. "Lucky you. It would be worse if they had caught you moonlighting."

I'm throwing a doubting glance at the phone and wonder if she is serious. "I was just kidding. It's because of moonlighting."

"Oh. Then farewell, kiddo. Because of you I will miss the final episode."

I swear, this old woman is a troll, just nobody notices. Other people consider her eccentric or conservative. My spirit animal. I ... will miss her. Sadly I hang up.

I continued blocking his system for a minute so I had time to run outside before he awakened. Outside I pressed myself to the wall of the hall and listened, ready to disappear into the other direction. I heard how the engines moved the big mass of metal.

"Conmother, come here."

I didn't move.

He moaned annoyed. "Just come here, I won't hurt you."

With quiet clicking of my claws on the ground I appeared in the door and came closer hesitatingly. In front of him I lifted myself up to look him in the optical sensors.

Threatening he points his finger to me. "You will never tell anyone about that, you heard? Never. No word to anyone."

I answered: "Yes, otherwise you will wipe out my species."

He makes the groaning sound of an angry machine. "Get lost."

I retreated myself submissively, backwards and disappeared through the exit.


	14. Olympus Mons 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra works off her sentence.

"Seldra, Seldra Sadkor, are you there above?"

I open my eyes and see the light of a flashlight shining from below into my tunnel. I worked myself to an unreachable place, where I have my peace and where I sleep in Cybertron style. When was the last time I was in the center? I don't care for their plans for our daily routines. I work - thanks to mechanical help - much faster then everyone else, so they shouldn't complain.

"What's the matter?" I mumble. Usually no-one of the other inmates cares for what I'm doing.

"You have a visitor."

Visitor? What visitor? Margret? Impossible, she is too old for such a trip.

I get up and thank the worker. Because I don't remember any face or name of anyone here I don't know who the voice belongs to.

I wait until the worker is gone, then I climb down in Bot mode. The advantage of being imprisoned here is that the million tons of stone above my head shields off my energy signature and I can run around as Bot without fearing visitors from space.

Nearby I hear more humans working and I transform back to human mode. On my way to the center I pass him by in the tunnel - I recognize the voice.

"Wash your face. Could be important" he adds before he continues tinkering with some cables.

Yeah, yeah, as if I want to be seen like that. In affect I wipe over my face and probably make it worse.

"By the way, how can you sleep on the ground?"

"Who says I'm doing that?"

"Well, they ... the people are talking about you. You behave strangely."

"You Martians are sleeping in soft beds and your food is growing in the lab. You are calling me strange? After three days on C... in a small room with nothing but the naked cold ground you learn such things. Fine, I'm strange then."

These humans. I engaged myself for them by Megatron and they lock me in for moonlighting. That is totally not nice. If they would lose the ground of civilization under their feet they would be lost. And then all this paper work as if that was something important.

I run further through the tight tunnels that open up more and more the closer I get to the center and follow the rails, on which lorries transport stones to the exit. I fix my look before I speak to a guard who brings me to the visitor area. He orders me to step into a room. How unusual, commonly a guard must be present when you meet a visitor. At least that's what other prisoners said.

Full of expectations I open the door, wondering who it could be ... Lopez?

I feel how my heart skips a beat. I'm glad to see him? Shit, I'm not over him. Stupid, human heart.

I try to put on a neutral face.

I close the door and sit down in front of him at the small table like in an interrogation, like in good old times. This time, this time he won't manipulate me. I say nothing, waiting for him to start. But he is better in this game than me.

Without a word he pulls out a pad from his bag, presses something on it and slides them to me over the table. I see a photo of another pad, that doesn't look like human technology at all. On this there are two pictures of me: One is my face as a human, one is my face as a Bot. Beside that there is text in three different languages. The first one tells me nothing. The second one is in Cybertronian language and the third one is written in common human language. It says roughly that they look for me and pay a high price for me. In Cybertronian language I also read that I'm a human friend and probably hide near Sol. For me the first text looks like the alien version of Egyptian hieroglyphs. How many civilizations are out there? First I think that Megatron is searching for me, but it's not his style to work with another species, also the signature is definitely not Cybertronian.

Thoughts are circling in my mind. If now the whole universe is searching for me or at least another species with higher developed, superior technology, what shall I do? Where shall I go? I need to fear that the humans where I hide get wiped out because of that. Or does tactic to hide among humans and shield off my energy signature suffice?

I try to control myself and smile at Lopez. "So you came to pocket my bounty? I can't blame you for that. The bounty is so high you could buy Earth with that. Not that it would be worth much with all its stolen technology."

I'm just kidding. Even stolen technologies have their worth. "That was a joke. It's just a conversion mistake."

I point to a random place in the Cybertronian text. "The Cybertronian economy has crashed. They forgot to respect the different inflation rates of human and Cybertronian credits. Why aren't you laughing?"

But Lopez didn't react. "A big green robot landed on Mars and looked for you with that wanted poster."

I heard only about one green robot that searches for people with bounties on their heads: Lockdown, the bounty hunter. Incredibly strong, incredibly successful. Nobody ever escaped him. With the money he earns he buys the best equipment in the universe which makes him even more successful.

"We thought it was the best to tell him you died in the attack of the pirates. And that we processed you to fertilizer and dispensed you over the fields, as it is common practice on Mars. He is of course free to search for any metal residues on the fields."

Oh my, I feel my face freezing. What did they do? Lockdown could wipe out the entire planet if he ever found out they were lying. Why did they do that? Why do they take that risk for me?

Lopez leans forward, looks deep into my eyes. "We thought we would like to know beforehand what's so valuable about you?"

I hesitate. No, this bounty is ridiculously high. Either it's a trap or it ruins the complete human economy. What should anyone do with so much money. Nevertheless I owe him one and I'm at his mercy. "If you promise me to not abuse me as a battery?"

"Why would we do that?"

I sigh. Oh, this human, he knows nothing, should I destroy his world view? Totally.

I smirk. "Do you know who invented the micro chip?" I don't wait for his answer. "That is Cybertronian technology. You think the Eps-drive was invented by Mars? I recognize Cybertronian technology when I see it. Your self-destroying five time encryption? How would some bits know how they are accessed? You cannot construct anything like that. It's Cybertronian technology."

Lopez smiles amused - he probably doesn't believe me and starts to protest, but I interrupt him. "Here, let me show you. May I?"

I take his pad, expose my tail and move it to the device. When I see that I have his full attention, I open the tip of the tail like a mouth in his direction and make hissing noises. Slightly he blenches. I laugh, then I make contact with the device.

On my inner system I run a simulation: Megatron deep-frozen in the research facility of the humans. Because of the cold he has taken some Yeti-like mode. Currently he is presented to some visitors - I leave the Allspark out. The guide explains, that they have researched Megatron and developed the micro chip and all technologies based on it with the knowledge they learned from him.

I'm working on the sound when I look at the pad and get startled: What is that, the image is full of black boxes? But in my simulation everything looks normal. Do I understand the format wrong?

Embarrassed I feel heat raising into my face. I hope he doesn't notice it.

"Wait a sec" I say, turn away from Lopez and hammer internally into the system. Whatever I do, I can't get rid of the boxes. Out of despair I try to fix them by hand, but there are too many.

It takes me too long and I feel Lopez' eyes staring into my neck when I hear him moving impatiently. I cannot continue my work like that. "Ehm, may I see the specification of the hologram format?"

He sighs. "I can bring it for you next time. Would you just answer the question?"

Too bad. I wanted to make my point clear with this video. "My answer is that beside I'm not that valuable the bounty is obviously a mistake. Beside Cybertronians are valuable, because they contain naturally grown technologies, for which biological beings like humans have to research for decades."

"May I make my own picture of that?"

"You ... want me to transform?"

He nods. I feel flattered. A human admirer.

I get up from the chair and transform - slowly, so he can see all the details. How the metal pushes itself out of my bones through the different slits in my skin and covers my human body. In the transformation I grow through my longer hind legs by a feet - and hit my head at the ceiling. How embarrassing.

I lean forward and support myself on the table. I hand Lopez a claw to look at - the long, thin forearms bow themselves forward, so I technically run on the finger tips if you look at it anatomically.

I blench. His touch slightly burns, as if his sweat would oxidate my metal. Now I know why the Cons react with disgust to my human body.

Lopez gets up and steps around me - in the simulation he had no time to look at me. He touches the glossy metal of my flanks.

"Don't you leave finger prints on my case!" With playful indignation I slap his hand away.

This position is uncomfortable and I settle down on four legs. Because my hind legs are longer than my fore legs, this, too, quickly becomes uncomfortable. This body is not made for still standing. Also now my head is as high as Lopez' chest, how unworthily.

Lopez observation reaches my tail, who agily moves all the time. I resist to make the joke with the hissing tail tip again despite I want to.

He comes back to my front and sits down. "Indeed I cannot see anything that explains the price."

I transform back and also sit down. I don't know if I should be happy or insulted. "You ... you see. That's what I said."

"Then I only wonder why they search for you and not for one of the others?"

"They don't? I don't know." I smile embarrassed. "Maybe it's because I'm the only one who is half human, half machine. My machine parts somehow adapted to work with my human nervous system. If you ask me that is nothing special, because both transfer electrical charges, but maybe someone else has another opinion."

"Good, that's all for now. Don't worry, I will pass this information only to a few chosen persons and under all security mechanisms you gave me."

I did? It's so long ago already. I don't remember everything I'm saying.

He continues: "Because of your arrest I cannot do anything unfortunately. I cannot interfere with the official processes too much. Maybe I will return to you with follow-up questions."

"Ehm, okay, no problem."

He says his good-bye and I'm brought back into the quarry.

When the doctor called me again I went on my own free will and with full power to him. Let's see what he made up this time. My feelings couldn't decide between curiosity and boredom.

"Hello human" he greeted me with creepy happiness at the door of his lab and let me step inside. "You merged with the Allspark when you got an electric shock, right?"

I saw where this would end - in a long, disappointed robot face. "At least I think that. I was with the Allspark in a side tunnel of the subway with all that cables where I lost consciousness. When I woke up the Allspark had disappeared."

"My genius plan intends that I get the Allspark out of you with electric shocks. Go onto the table!"

This time he wanted me in human mode. He let me strap myself to the table and connect myself to the electric circuit.

"Let's start with something light" he decided and manipulated some controls at his machine, which I couldn't see from my place.

I watched my sensors. "1.2 volt, 150 milliampere" I announced. I had already started to measure my own Energon shocks so I knew how much I could give the protoforms. Energon was heavily related to electricity. Or a kind of it. I didn't know the exact details.

"Stop babbling! I know how much I tuned in. Tell me if the Allspark reacts."

"No." Despite that my other sensors showed nothing special.

"Okay. Next try."

8 000 Volt, 1.2 ampere. Nothing happened, although I should have noticed something as a human. My theory said that the electricity was absorbed by the Allspark instead of flowing through me to the ground. "Nothing" I announced.

"Hm. And now?"

50 000 Volt, 4 ampere. Now things got interesting. I noticed a slight increase of my body temperature when the metal minimally heated up. It nearly felt as if I gave some Energon to the protoforms. But somehow backwards. I could take a few of them, but not too many.

"No, and you shouldn't go any higher. Otherwise the metal heats up too much and burns my human flesh."

"Pull yourself together. You can die when we have the Allspark."

He gave me the next shock. I felt how the nerves' ends started to notice the heat. I stared on my hand and it was as if the bones in me started to melt like lava. I started to scream.

I'm just working happily in my tunnel. In bot mode I can have my fling and grind my claws at the stone. My favorite way is to project simulations onto my eyes and to fight against the wall - the most realistic way I can simulate the clash with an opponent. That makes me relive my memories about all the times in the arena. That reminds me that, although I stand head and shoulders above every human, I'm the weakest among Cybertronians. This needn't to stay like that.

When I switch off the simulation I marvel at a big crack that spreads from the wall before me over the side wall to the ground. At least I manage to do anything.

I split the tip of my tail and grab fragments which I pull out of the wall.

Then I hear noise that I don't recognize and screams. The humans with their small worries again. Probably it's a fight over a tool again. Or rations.

I ignore it at first, but the noise stays unusually long, so I decide I better have a look.

I jump down the tunnel and transform.

On the way I see a hint to the problem: There's a puddle of water on the ground in front of a sloping tunnel. Agitated workers come out of the tunnel splattering water and running in search for help to the direction of the center.

I look into the tunnel and see in the weak light from the main tunnel more workers at the end. And more water that runs from the ceiling into the tunnel.

I wonder: Why aren't they just coming out?

Then I realize: On Mars there is only sparse water. Martians cannot swim. And Belter probably also not.

I don't know what the guards would do who are probably all Martians and if they were here on time giving that the water rises quickly.

I step into the ice cold water and run as far as I can, then I swim forward. That seems really slow to me.

"I bring you out of here" I explain to an old worker and I don't really know how to do that. "Hold on tight on me. Don't worry, you will be fine."

But in his fear he puts all his weight onto me and pushes me under water. It's of no use. I transform. As Bot I'm strong enough to lift him, also I'm big enough to reach the ground.

He screams at me in panic, but I bring him to the other side as if nothing has happened.

"Go to the center" I say unnecessarily with my tin voice.

But when I return the others react with less panic and let me carry them. I bring them to the other side as quickly as I can, but the water keeps rising, so I don't reach the ground anymore and I struggle with swimming in this skinny body, so I try another tactic: I let the next worker cling to me while I pound my claws into the fissures of the wall and climb along it.

Back again I get the next worker, I'm nearly done.

Then the part of the wall in front of me where my claws stick breaks and falls backwards into the darkness. It hits somewhere, turns around, the worker on my back hits against a rock, then more rocks break free from above.

I pull the claws out of the rock when the falling rocks hit me and drag me with them into the deep, together with the water that flows into the hole.

Groggily I find myself in a pond in a cave where the falling rocks have stopped and fumble my way to a dry, high place.


	15. PART III - Olympus Mons 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra arranges herself with her loneliness.

I woke up on cold metal ground, my body had cooled off so much that I heavily shivered. I wanted to get up and groaned - every small movement hurt. A transformation would help me now, but my systems didn't respond and the sensors were offline.

I could not make out where I was. It was dark except of a weak shine that told me nothing. I was on Cybertron, but I didn't know where or how I came here.

Slowly I got up on hands and knees while I only moved what was really necessary. Then I slowly retracted until I crouched. It was unbearable to touch my own legs. I tried to suppress the shivering, but I couldn't.

"Margret?" I called and cringed because of the pain of moving my lungs and jaw.

In the shadows of the darkness something moved. He said something in Cybertronian language which I didn't understand.

"Ehm, can you repeat this in my language?"

"I asked if you are feeling better now. Are your acoustic sensors offline?"

"They're fine, I'm only too ailing for Cybertronian language" I snarl through closed teeth. "What happened? Where am I?"

"You screamed for three days. We thought you were dying. I brought you down here, because the others couldn't stand your screaming for any longer."

I didn't really know what to do with that information. Usually I would tease him that they had been worried about me. But I wasn't in the mood.

"Shall I bring you up?" he asked.

I considered it. Did I want light and fresh air? But I had to move for that. For that he needed to touch me and lift me and carry me and every step would torture me. And the warmth would burn in my bones.

"I don't know."

I wished for a pain reliever, but until I had found one on Cybertron I wouldn't need it any longer.

"Fine. Tell me when you are done."

I heard the scratching of his metal parts when he went back to his waiting position.

I bore the pain as good as I could, from one second to the next until it faded and the cold was worse. No idea how long it took.

"Margret? Please bring me up. Somewhere where it's warm."

I could slowly get up, but when I imagined to walk the huge distance on my own to find a warm place I capitulated.

M-426237 picked me up and clamped me under his arm as usual.

"Not like this! Carry me on two arms."

The tin head of course didn't know how to carry a human gently.

"Can you transform?" he asked.

"Of course! I just don't feel like it. My human body needs to recover first."

After what had happened to Patchwork I thought it was best to not request any help if it wasn't really necessary.

I sit alone, totally alone in the darkness. I try strongly to hear voices from above, but it's deadly quiet.

"Hello?" I call out. "Does anyone hear me?"

I wait, listen, nothing.

I try it with full power: "HELLO?"

Again I wait and listen strongly, but everything I hear is my own breathing and my pulse in my ears. Slowly I get scared. I'm so alone, so alone, trapped in this cave. How long will it take to free the way and save me?

I transform to bot mode. At least I won't starve or die of thirst this way and I can hold out for very long.

I put a simulation over my eyes that includes the borders of the cave as I know it, currently only the ground under my feet. At least with that I can better orientate myself and scout the room to expand the simulation.

I climb up all the way I have fallen down and find it slopped with rocks. Here all the time water is flowing out and flows to a small lake I will have a look at later. My location is roughly an egg-shaped cavity from which some bigger and smaller tunnels branch off. Maybe one of them will bring me back to the center. I consider if I can find another exit or if I can make one myself - but as human I cannot breath on the Mars surface and as Bot they would find me with my energy signature. I can only take the way back to the center which is blocked.

I opened the door of the small suburban house. The sun shined onto the lovely front garden with its red roses and forget-me-nots. I left the summer scent behind me and stepped into the tidy, light-flooded corridor. Beside the neatly ordered shoes - six of its kind, a big pair and two small ones - I put my own and my hand bag. Colorful pictures scrawled by children decorated the white walls.

I stepped through the left door into the room which was living room and kitchen at once. In the kitchen on the right side Lopez was standing at the stove - wearing nothing but an apron.

He turned around to me smiling. "Hello, darling. Dinner is ready, soon."

From the living room on the left our son ran to me. He grabbed my hand and pulled it. "Look mama what I built" and pointed to a robot as big as him that stood there in the corner.

My daughter who sat beside it on the ground, called out proudly: "And I programmed it. Watch this." She pressed a button on a remote control and commanded the robot: "Dance!"

It lifted itself up, stood there totally stiff. Then it opened its legs, let the head drop to the side and the right forearm dangle - robot dance.

"Good job!" I praised and stepped to Lopez to give him a kiss.

Then I saw out of the window. I saw the red ground of Mars and a brown ocean which gently surged to the beach. The ocean that reminded me of something important.

Lopez had turned to me in expectation and looked at me questioning.

No.

I close down the simulation and find myself back again in the eternal darkness. I can create a paradise for myself and spend the rest of my life happily ever after in a fantasy world. Doing everything I want, experience everything, as long and as often as I want.

But I don't want. I want to face reality. I want to meet humans with their own will who do what they want to, something that is out of my control and surprises me all the time. That's what life is about. I want to discover new horizons that challenge my imagination. Staying here means to give up. I will find a way out.

Will the humans hold on to me for so long or is it more likely that they give up when it seems as if my rescue takes longer than my human lifespan? A simulation until that would distract me or make me go insane. I cannot just wait. I don't want to wait. A plan forms in my mind. Maybe it's time to discover more powers of the Allspark, here at this place where it is not dangerous to any human.

I make up a range of small robots, form them from metal of my Bot body and give each one of them a small spark. The metal will slowly regrow.

I had nice, high stakes: Me as Botmother with my small children who help me to clear the way and to scout the caves.

But I quickly get disappointed.

Now I hear metal that sharps over each other and screams.

"Hey, stop that!" I call out.

But they don't stop.

Shrill squalls tang when one Con nearly rips another one apart.

I run to them and separate them. "Stop that I said!"

They behold as they always do.

I give them energon shocks to repair them. "You shouldn't fight. You should stick together" I say and put them down.

They behold again as always when I give them a command, then they sneak asunder. I know that they will do it again when they feel like it.

I try hard to educate them. Sometimes I go into the main cave and transform to human mode. "This is how a human looks like" I say and remind myself that they are blind. "Touch me."

They hesitate. No one moves.

"Come on, you need to be able to recognize a human."

They hesitate again. Then some of them tip me with their thin legs, the bare minimum to follow my order.

I know that the touch of human skin is uncomfortable for them, but that's all. It doesn't harm them. Sometimes I call for them and tell them stories about Earth. About children and adults, parties and holidays, living, working, food, sports, whatever comes to my mind. I consider this important.

They listen patiently, nearly apathetic, they never ask any questions and when I'm silent for a while and they think I'm done they return to their previous tasks without a word. Neither I know how they like it nor if they learn anything of that.

"Hissy, where is Izzy?" I ask one of them.

Yeah, I know, I'm incredible creative with the names and I took random words that sound cute.

Hissy hesitates - it annoys me. It's as if they would think everything if they should obey me or not. Then he give me the answer as some coordinates which have their null point in our main cave.

I separated them into working groups: Some guard the main cave, where I landed. Some scout the tunnels. And some of them clear the split where I have fallen down. But they do it hesitating, slowly, unorganized. As if they didn't know why they were doing it or as if they didn't care. They communicate only the bare minimum with me and fight each other often for any reasons. Yes, they are aggressive. I can't deny they are Decepticons. It doesn't matter how I make them up they stay small, develop several legs that are fitted for climbing and they lose their optical sensors. Like bats they use some kind of sonar for orientation. I call them Cavecons. Meanwhile there are fifteen of them and I don't like to make more as long as they cause such trouble. It wouldn't speed up work anyway. Why does the Allspark mostly make Decepticons? That puzzles me.

I find Izzy jammed in a small split and I cannot tell if it is an accident or if he lost a fight.

It makes me angry that they don't obey me. But then I realize that I'm their mother and I'm responsible for them, so when I don't like their behavior then it's my job to change it.

I free Izzy and repair him. Then I ask: "Tell me, why do you hesitate every time before you follow any order?"

There is the hesitation again, this time exceptionally long. I get the strong impression that he thinks about whether and what he should say.

"Go ahead, I won't punish you" I add.

He answers: "Mother, we feel the might of life in you."

He speaks Cybertronian language which is much easier for machine throats and because my name literally means "mother", it's not an honorable addressing.

"But this human body is ... disgusting."

He waits, maybe for a punishment, which doesn't come. I sometimes scold them, but I never really punish them as other Decepticons probably would do, like I often got punished.

"It's not right that this power is in a human body. Also you are so weak. You never fight. You never punish us."

"Okay, thanks, I understood" I sigh.

But Izzy continues: "That's what I mean. I say vile things and you are grateful. And you always tell us about those human things, useless stories about these disgusting creatures."

"Alright, alright." I distort my face with anger.

On the way back I think about that and ease myself: That is an important hint and I probably missed out on some things.

I send a message to all Cavecons and call them into the big cave.

I wait until they all are there and announce: "I heard that you find my human body disgusting and that you consider me soft and weak and that you find useless what I tell you about humans. But listen: The humans live above there behind the exit and they are much stronger than you. Your only chance to survive is to know them. From now on I will teach you individually in simulations so you can see, what I'm talking about. Thanks, that's all, you can continue your work now."

They hesitate again. If I was in human mode now I would sigh, but my Bot body doesn't breath and my sighing is only virtually. We still have a long way to got.

I call for Fuzzy and contact his system, where I project my simulation. "Your task is to cross the corridor, do you understand?"

I brought him into a building where guards patrolled the corridors.

Fuzzy quietly ran forward. When a guard turned around to him, he froze.

"What is that?" the guard shouted and shot.

Fuzzy is thrown out of the simulation screaming.

"The guard saw you" I said.

"Why? I was quiet."

I sigh. That could become very strenuous.

"Humans look. Either you take care that there is an item between you and the eyes of the human or you look like an item. One more time."

Similar procedures I do with all of them while some are better or worse than others.

Sometimes I spontaneously send an order to all Cavecons: "Hide!"

That is the only command I have repeated often enough so they don't hesitate for as long before they follow it, because they are doing it out of reflex now. Then I run around and control them. "Mitzy, that's not how a rock looks like. This is too straight."

In a simulation the controlling is easier. "Mitzy, that is the wrong color. A stone in the cave must be red and dull."

"What is color?"

I sigh and need to think of something new. In the simulation I show them their surface reflection as parameters. "This is the light you are currently reflecting. And this is how you're suppose to look like."

With this feedback they roughly manage to adapt their color. When this works I let them run through the simulation again.

"Fuzzy, when you are in a cave, a stone is a good disguise. But when you hide in a modern kitchen, a stone is too conspicuous. You should transform to something that is already there. But not everything is possible. A second radio directly beside the first one can be weird."

Meanwhile they understand the signification behind my cultural lectures. They need to know which places or items work as a disguise. They need to know which items are used for what and how they should behave. I give them as much knowledge about Earth as I can. I also teach them in new simulations how to watch and learn how to cope with that. I confront them with all human behavior I can think of: Talking, Dating, Shopping, driving bus, fights. The hesitation after orders fades, but doesn't disappear completely. Also I mention their origin and tell them about Cybertron. My children, how I feel for them, grow to my heart and I promise them I will take them there when we get out of here.


	16. Olympus Mons 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra is saved.

I heard the scraping and grinding of metal and didn't pay attention to it. After an awkward silence I realized that I was stared at. More scraping and grinding.

M-426237 said: "He says he will wipe out your species if you don't answer his question."

"Right, what else" I replied and continued to pretend I would ignore Megatron.

Too late I identified the sound of moving metal. Megatron already grabbed me with his servo and lifted me to his face.

"I asked if it's true that you can't transform anymore. I wanted to know if you need a mechanic."

"I don't need your help. Of course I can transform, but my human body needs to recover."

"You know what happens if you die, don't you?"

"Yes, I don't have to stand all your promises that you wipe out humanity anymore."

"Watch yourself. You should not disgruntle me when you are too weak to bear the consequences."

"I'm not scared of you. You will kill me anyway someday. I'm the human you hate the most."

He was obviously fighting his impulses. But I had provoked him so often that he got good in resisting them. "You ... don't do anything to change that."

He put me roughly down and I fell.

My audience was over. Megatron went with huge steps to the lab.

I thought it was better if I and M-426237 left the place.

While we left I heard Megatron scolding: "Scalpel, you got one job and you fail for months to show me only the slightest bit of progress. I begin to lose my patience with you."

"Lord Megatron, the human has merged deeply and in an unnatural way with the Allspark. To research this connection to untie it takes its time."

I didn't hear the rest of the chat, because M-426237 requested me: "Can you speed up your regeneration? My planet is dying."

"So what? I have plenty of time. Humans can live up to hundred years."

"That is ridiculous. Do you know how long we machines can exist?"

"Oh, how sad. Then my human flesh will rot and my metal core will stay here for thousands of years and remind you of our time together."

The pain had faded so much I could laugh again.

M-426237 shuddered. "You would die just to kick out at us? Don't do that."

I laughed again. As if it would make any difference what I said now.

He asked: "What do you see when you look around? Do you really want to destroy all of this?"

I didn't really look. I had seen it so often. "Cybertron looks like I feel."

One day Lissy announces per short message: "Breakthrough, humans."

I send a command to all of them: "Hide!", then I climb up the split, which the Cavecons have cleaned up.

I hear voices. That must be the cave where the workers were buried! Half happy, half bewildered I feel my way through the water until I see a shine on the other side in the distance and transform.

"Hello! Here I am!" I call out and the voices come closer. They blind me with a flashlight directed to my face.

"It's Seldra!" the man replies and the workers run to me to hug me and to thank me.

In joy about the welcoming I start to cry.

I send to the Cavecons: "Move outside without attracting attention and hide there. Wait for further commands. Now the time has come to show what you have learned."

Then I let the workers bring me to the center.

"We've spend the first weeks to move away the rocks that had fallen down after you" one of the workers explained laughing and crying at the same time. "But it was of no use. How did you survive?"

I explain that this secret amour prototype contains a hibernation module that automatically activates in case of emergencies so I don't need food or oxygen. They promise to keep my secret.

At the center they bring me to a guard and the workers leave us. They let me into the fore rooms where I get food and access to the bathroom. I decline a visit to the doctor and assure them that I'm fine. The guards don't seem to know about my secret.

"My prison term is over, when am I allowed to leave?" I ask and look onto my inner clock, but I have to wait.

I crouched on a step in the arena and watched the fight while I thought about what I should do. Every time I got to the same result: waiting. Patchwork had said that damages repair themselves. It would have done so if I had lost my transformation ability for the first time. However, I had doubt, because in that time the doctor had damaged my parts mechanically. This time it was something different. I had no idea what effect the electricity had on me. But in that case, too, I couldn't think of anything better than to wait.

It was weird, I felt like cut off. Around me I heard all the machine noises when the Cons spoke Cybertronian language with each other, but I didn't understand a word. Let alone to speak about the wireless transmissions.

No, that wasn't completely true. There was one combination of sounds I recognized.

I turned around to the Cons that whispered beside me. "Hey, I can hear you."

They looked at me confused and silenced.

That's what I thought. They had clearly said my name. Because I had transcribed its noise into human language with great effort and much fantasy of my biological brain it was the only word that I made out.

I could imagine what they were gossiping about me. That they considered if I could not transform anymore. At least I had taught them enough respect to leave me alone.

"Hello, mother."

Or not. That was Bolt, the small one with the satchel. He spoke to me in human language.

"Is it true that you cannot transform any more?"

"Oh Primus" I moaned theatrically. "You don't believe how often I got asked that. It's enough. You probably already know my answer."

He continued: "Do we want to test your statement? If you are able to transform I can make you with one button, how about that?"

I answered: "You can get lost" and turned away.

Bolt said "Okay" and turned around and around to get the attention of the other Cons. "So, folks, do we want to check if Conmother still can transform or fools us all?"

He was still in the movement to pull his remote control out of the satchel when I pounced on him. Ouch. It felt like running against a wall, but because he was bipedal and unprepared this was enough to throw him down. That would cause some nice bruises.

I grabbed the remote control. With one knee I stepped onto his arm to block him and the other leg I put on his head to block his sight. I tried to wring the remote control out of his grip, but I didn't need that much effort.

Bolt didn't resist, but only screamed out of fear and probably disgust that I should stay away from him.

In this moment M-426237 stepped in and picked me up. I had found out that he cleaned himself secretly after touching me. I needed to tease him with that at some point, this killjoy.

"Margret, let me down!" I shouted and flounced in his grip. "I will show him!" Of course I wouldn't. I just made a dent.

Bolt picked himself up and checked the condition of his remote control before he put it away. "Tz, I don't need to push anymore. You gave me the answer with that one."

M-426237 carried me to another area in the audience tribunes where he put me down, so I could continue to watch the fights while he kept an optic on me so he could stop me before I ran back to Bolt.

After some days I get another visitor and sit down in front of Lopez.

"Fine that you returned safe and sound" he says with a diplomatic smile. "As I heard the work in the quarry went on much faster as anticipated and also in a wrong direction, so the stone wasn't checked for safety beforehand. An unfortunate accident."

I must have overdone it with my play instinct and my overtime work. Whoops.

"My imprisonment is over and I want to go home."

Lopez explains to me: "The right to roam around freely is to be earned by strictly defined, bureaucratic processes. Too bad you found a loophole for which there is no official way out. You are illegal on Mars without identity or origin or any other option to send you back."

I ask provoking: "So is there a legal way home or do I need to hack myself out again?"

He just continues: "The circumstances of your arrival caught the fancy of some special people. We would like to fathom if you have information which are important for the safety of Mars."

I suggest: "Tell your friends that I test the prototype of a fighting armor from Earth. I'm not permitted to give out any information."

"The relationship between Earth and Mars is strained. This input would cause a conflict. Earth will say that they don't know about this and Mars won't believe them, especially as you stay on Mars without permission so you are suspicious for espionage."

"You say an illegally arrived alien is less worse than a spy from Earth? You are all humans. Why don't you just get along with each other?"

He laughs quietly as if I said something very obvious or stupid.

"I understand. You just want to do experiments on me, don't you." I sigh. That was to be expected. Humans cannot leave something alone if they spot something new.

"If you want my technology you can just take it."

There is nothing special about that. I grab into my hammer space and give him copies of my sensors that measure blood pressure, temperature and other things - of course the sensors are much, much smaller. I mounted them to small metal plates so they don't get lost. That is all technology I've got which could be of remote interest for humans. Nobody wants my weapons and the simulations are produced by my brain.

Lopez only says: "I assure you that this is unnecessary."

"Take them!" I wave with the plates in front of his face. What does that mean? This is the payment for them so they won't saw me open to get this technology.

Finally he sighs and takes them reluctantly. After I explain to him what it is he says: "We already build such sensors into all of our medi-scans."

He hands them back to me. I put them back with disappointment. Unbelievable.

"I thought you wanted my technology. Humans always want Cybertronian technology."

Lopez says: "Do you remember what I promised you?"

I look at him. And try hard to remember what that could be. Or when that was supposed to happen. "No?"

Then he gives me his hand. "I promise you that nothing happens without your permission. Trust me."

I sigh again. Looks like I don't have another choice. I can still switch to Cybertronian methods if I feel like it.

"May I at least visit Margret? Margret Rime?"

"She died recently" he replies untouched.

I ... I sit still for some moments. "Ehm, and her heritage?"

"She doesn't have any relatives so everything goes to Mars."

Oh no. I hit my head onto the table. I had already saved up half the money I needed for a trip to Earth. Not only has my closest confidante died, also I have to start all over again.

"Sorry." I lift myself up. "She meant a lot to me."

"I know. Come."

He initiates the transportation to the research center.


	17. Experiments 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra's weapons are tested.

It woke me up from my sleep, all the impressions that crashed onto me unfiltered. Blood pressure, pulse, temperature, glucose, everything appeared on the outputs of the different sensors. The machine listened to my thoughts, ready to take my orders. I was the machine that listened, ready to do any calculation without emotion, but with unsurpassed precision. Incomprehensible capacities were all mine. I received the wireless transmissions of the Cons in my area and moved them to a side process. Then I checked my storage - everything was still there - and opened my file with Rick Ashley, to put music on my ears for 4 minutes. Ah, how I had missed that.

I decided to not tell the others. They thought I could not understand what they were saying in the Cybertronian language and could eavesdrop. That would be fun. I had a hard time not to grin. I needed to take care that I wouldn't show a reaction if someone addressed me in the Cybertronian language.

When I had nothing to do I spent a while in the arena and watched the other Cons fight. I had thought that the amount of fighting strategies for humanoid Cons would be limited, but the variation of the weapon systems and technologies made it hard for me to see patterns. I wanted to see so much more.

I was totally lost in the fight that was currently taking place in the arena when my body suddenly started to transform. For the fraction of a second I stared on my arms in surprise before I realized what was happening, then I tried to fight it, but too late. Now I crotched on the step in Bot mode and all Cons nearby looked at me.

I was looking around wondering and looked into all the optical sensors that were at least as surprised as me. But some of them looked to a point behind me. I turned around.

It was Bolt who was sitting two steps behind me and pointed his remote control to me. Now everything was clear.

"You stupid tin can" I said and jumped to him to kick his after burner.

Too bad he pushed another button. As I was in the middle of the jump I froze, fell down onto the edge of the step between us. From there my weight pulled me down backwards and I fell onto the lower step.

Okay, that was a little bit inconvenient, but actually not bad.

But then I heard how Bolt sent a message to Megatron: "Conmother can transform again." Several Cons in the arena who had seen me sent confirmations. "Yes, I saw it, too."

I understood. After all the trouble I had caused, they enjoyed to rattle me out. Okay. That was ridiculous compared to what I had done to them. Nobody could stand up to me in causing trouble.

Megatron sent his answer to M-426237 who was nearby as always to keep an optical sensor on me. "Is that true?"

M-426237 answered: "Yes, everyone in the arena saw it."

Thereupon Megatron sent the next message to me: "Conmother, go to Scalpel."

Damn. With the comeback of my transformation ability I was qualified for experiments again. Happily the other Cons watched me when I left the arena.

Lopez again takes the role of questioning me. I insist that he switches off his pad before we talk.

He says: "I assure you that these safety procedures are completely unnecessary."

"Yeah? Why?"

"Nobody listens without us knowing."

"They are disguised. Of course they can stay on Mars unnoticed. I arrived without problems."

"And did you stay unnoticed?"

I rub my face with effort. "No, but ..."

"I assure you that no Transformers stay unnoticed on Mars and listen to us."

It's pointless to discuss with him. If they are "unnoticed" he of course doesn't know about them. Doesn't matter, his pad is off anyway.

"Actually the correct term is 'Cybertronians', from planet Cybertron. 'Transformers' was made up by humans."

"Noted. So, why do you think Cybertronians would hide here?"

"Everything here is full of Cybertronian technology. Cybertronians disguise as items or vehicles of the planet where they currently are located."

"Are you able to transform to a vehicle?"

"No, the mass must stay about the same and I need to take a shape where my human body fits in. I can only do human, robot and silver egg." You can also say: social interaction mode, fight mode and travel mode.

He asks: "Do you dispose of any weapons?"

"Well, depends on how you define it."

"May I see them?"

Oh my, how embarrassing. I expose my pea shooter from my right arm, unmount it and lay it down in front of Lopez.

He looks at it from afar, then he takes it in a long winded way while he holds the opening away from him all the time. Then he looks at it closely from all sides. "How does it work? Where are the controls?"

"If it's connected to me I don't need any controls."

"Good. Follow me."

He takes me to a room below the ground where the walls are made of sand and I already see where this is going: To a total shame.

He calls for two researchers what I recognize because of their white smocks, a man and a woman.

The blond woman wears her hair pinned back and thick black glasses.

Lopez turns to me. "These are Carla Currant - she leads the department that researches new technologies -" Really? She looks so young, at most thirty. Lopez continues: "and Mark Huss, his department develops new modules." He seems to be nice, but also weak: I cannot put a finger on it. Maybe it's because of his short, accurately cut hair. Or because his smock sits loose because of a lack of muscles.

"That is Se'eldra Sadr'khor in person." Oh. Lopez pronounces my name correctly. Not everyone manages to do that.

Together with Mark he retrieves some kind of wooden block with a target on it - probably Mark only takes care of the balance - which they set up in front of the wall across the door, while Carla retrieves eye protection and ear plugs, which she also offers to me.

"That is completely unnecessary" I try to explain, but somehow nobody listens to me. Then they set up cameras and some other measuring devices.

Lopez points to the block with the target and asks: "Is this sufficient or do you need something more resistant?"

"Well ... actually this is nearly too much."

The three place themselves behind a wall of protection glass while Carla is busy taking notes on her pad. With a pen.

"This is shielded, right?" I ask. "And you're concealing your notes?"

"Yes" Carla says: "I gave you the code name Batida to protect your privacy."

"Oh" I make and grin. "You missed the wonderful opportunity to give me the code name Little Red Riding Hood."

She looks at me not comprehending. "Why?"

"Not that important. Never mind." She is no linguist.

She asks if I want to step behind the protection glass and to shoot through the small hole. I decline.

"Good, you can start" Mark says.

Lopez hands me back my pea shooter and the three look at me full of expectations. Man, this is so embarrassing. Better get over with this.

I put the gun back onto my arm, where the socket pushes itself out of the slit in my skin to welcome the gun and connect them with each other. I point my arm to the target. It's not possible to look over the gun for aiming and I sometimes wonder how I can ever hit anything which is smaller than a large robot.

Hesitating I shoot. The bullet flies slowly, almost in slow motion, drops on its way to the target and hits the bare wood below the target, before it falls to the ground.

I fold in the "weapon" and don't dare to turn around in embarrassment.

I hear Carla asking: "Ehm, can you regulate the force and shoot with more power?"

I swallow: "I ... I cannot actually when everyone watches." I want to sink into the ground.

"Do you have more weapons?"

I hide my face with my hands. "The other one is even worse."

Finally Lopez releases me from my pain and says: "Fine, that's enough. You can keep your weapons."

At the next day Mark visits me again. Even his voice is weak. I don't have any respect for him.

"Hello. I'm here to ask you some questions." He holds his pad before him, ready to take notes.

"Where is Lopez?"

"He has the day off. Please just answer my questions."

Off. Whatever he says. Maybe he just needs some distance, because I'm so annoying that he regrets he took that job. This is what he will regret even more.

"I'd like to know: How did you become a cyborg?"

What an ugly word. I cannot identify with that, given that the machine in me is alive and grew there. Build there. Whatever.

"Oh, but I didn't" I explain. "I was made by a pervert mating session. My father had a fetish for caravans - nobody knew. It turned out the caravan on the place of the trader, where my father roamed around at night, was a Cybertronian. Strange things happen."

He nods interested and takes notes. I have expected some more reactions.

Then he asks: "I didn't fully understand this, can you explain the process in detail? Does that mean Transformers reproduce sexually like we do?"

Then I have a great idea. Let's see how his objective, scientific method reacts to this. "Wait a second, I show you."

I borrow his pad and start to generate pictures with the help of simulations which I show to him.

"Here. That is the mating arena where everyone gathers who looks for a partner. Here: that is a ritualized show battle, which can be very intense and looks almost real. Both competitors check in a playful fight if they're compatible with each other, also the viewers can decide if the participants qualify as a partner. Here, the two shake servos after the battle - their hands - and together disappear outside."

I fully live up in my creativity while I generate one picture after the other.

"About the specific process I cannot say anything general, that depends strongly on the two partners. Some examples."

I show a picture of Soundwave how he hacks a satellite. "This one mates with a human satellite using his tentacles. Yes, exactly, lifeless machines of humans also work. Of course they never say no." Yes, I ship Soundwave with the satellite. They are a cute couple.

I ship Megatron hard with Optimus and want to generate a picture of them. But then I have to think how Optimus looks at me with such disappointment in his blue optical sensors and I cannot do it. Instead I generate a picture how Megatron beats up Starscream, but from an angle so it looks as if they would heavily get it on.

Also I show a picture of Shockwave how he gets out of Driller, but at the wrong end.

The researcher looks at all pictures with great interest and scientific objection. That's too bad. I have put in so much effort.

"How exactly can I imagine the process in a biological way?"

"How shall I know? I don't set up cameras and fill the Cybertronians up with sensors like humans do."

He smiles like caught. He understands that hint. The scientists among the humans don't stop anywhere to satisfy their curiosity.

After I made up some stuff about birth or better to say hatching - I decided for the variety with laying eggs - and the growing of the youth our session is over soon and he promises to return with new questions.


	18. Experiments 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wespons are tested on Seldra.

The next day Lopez is back again. In my opinion they tried to replace him, but noticed that they get better results if he questions me.

He says: "We would like to find out with your help which weapons are effective against Transformers."

That's what humankind knows for several hundred years. Maybe they want to test new weapons. "How am I supposed to help you? Most likely my human body dies first. I can take much less then the others."

I explain to him, that metal melts at several thousand degrees, but my human flesh cannot even stand two hundred. Machines can resist a freezing cold in which my human body would die. The Cybertronians beat each other up with glowing swords and stand hits by rockets, everything that would kill me instantly. How should they get any meaningful results when testing weapons on me?

"We don't have another option to make ourselves a picture at the living object. Don't worry, we won't test anything without your consent."

I don't know what to do. Megatron said the humans would experiment on me. Their curiosity is not to be satisfied. They would continue until I'm completely destroyed. But before that I would flee, crawl back to Megatron and tell him he was right in every point.

Should I decline out of fear and thus agree with Megatron? Or should I take the chance and see if something else happens?

I never back off from challenges, no matter how big they seem to be. I stand up to everything.

Then I drift away.

"Megatron" I addressed him and immediately when turning around he rolled his optical sensors annoyed. "What do you want? I'm getting tired of you."

"Yes, I understood, you don't want to deal with the humans. But that doesn't mean you have to destroy them. We could coexist peacefully in different corners of the universe without ever seeing each other."

"Get lost."

He grabbed me and threw me away with a well aimed throw.

I screamed.

Roads and half collapsed buildings passed me by below me until I fell through the roof of the arena and hit the ground shortly after transforming.

"Not again."

With anger I sorted my servos and got up, in a defensive pose I looked for my opponents, prepared to dodge anytime.

A big, wide Con stepped into the arena who wore his cannons on his shoulders, not in his arms like most others did.

I swallowed intimidated. His calibers were so big that I could see the insides of the openings from this far.

He didn't let me wait and fired a badly aimed shot. The mighty projectile surpassed me with a noise. A huge explosion catapulted me forward and I flew throw the arena, smashed into the wall and stayed on the ground with my servos over my head, waiting for the smoke to disperse.

Before I could think of a plan I heard Megatron's angry roaring. With steps that made the ground shake he ran here and jumped from outside directly into the middle of the arena.

"No explosive projectiles against the human I said!" he shouted and shot the Con through the wall with a single shot.

"What, what?" I realize that someone spoke to me. "Yes, yes. Bird shot is fine."

Ha, bird shot, ridiculous. Maybe I'm not good in much else, but my case is great in protecting my human flesh from most of physical impacts.

They take me to the room with wands made of sand. I ask and they reassure me that the room is sufficiently shielded and that the cameras are not connected to the Internet, also that they delete the records after analyzing them.

They have mounted a shotgun to a frame and marked the position where I'm supposed to stand with a red cross on the ground. The distance is accurately measured. All data is collected, nothing is left to chance. In my opinion this is exaggerated. Maybe that makes sense from a scientific point of view, but in a real fight these details are irrelevant.

Lopez steps together with Carla into the area behind the safety glass behind the frame with the shot gun. She looks at me scared. "But ... she is a human?"

Lopez turns to me: "Would you confirm to her that we are allowed to shoot at you?"

"Yes, you are allowed to shoot me with bird shot. Size 9 you said." That is small I guess.

I'm not sure if Carla heard me. She's busy taking notes on her pad. Then she strikes through something and rewrites it.

"I'm ready" she announces finally. "Ehm, is this loaded?"

Lopez takes the weapon from the frame, puts in a cartridge visibly for everyone and puts it back, the opening pointing to me.

In the past this would have made me nervous. But meanwhile I have looked into much larger gun openings that this one causes no reaction on my side.

Carla nervously steps from one foot to the other. "I ... was just asking."

She steps forward, heavily taking care to stay away from the weapon.

She talks to me: "Are you sure that we are allowed to shoot at you? That is a dangerous weapon. You needn't to do that."

Oh Primus, what a cute little human. I smile amused. "Yes, you are. I can repeat it three more times if you like."

"How was your name? Do we have your waiver of liability"

"Se'eldra Sadr'khor." I spell: "Seybertrontje. Effon. Scuritje ..." I need much effort to suppress my grin when her pen hovers over the pad while I see it working in her head. Lopez looks at me disapproving, but doesn't say anything.

"Can you repeat that? Maybe a bit slower."

Oh, how lovely. She thinks she is the one who is too stupid to understand my information. I spell it again in their alphabet. Then I realize I missed the opportunity to say my name in the real Cybertronian language to see her reaction, but for that I would have needed to pass the opportunity of a surprise transformation when she shoots. You cannot have everything.

Carla finally says: "Okay. Then we can start. I shoot now. At three, okay?" She puts her finger at the trigger.

Lopez hints: "You need to open the safety catch first."

"Safety catch?" She searches on the weapon.

Lopez points to the small switch. "Push that forward."

When she pushes it forward, she startles when it makes the clicking noise. I see how she takes some deep breaths to screw up her courage. Oh my, why is she so nervous. I'm the one who gets shoot at.

Shaking she puts the finger on the trigger. Looks unnecessarily over the gun in a long winded way, as if she needed to aim.

Then she pulls her hand back. "I .. I can't do this." She makes a step back and hides her face in embarrassment. "Oh god, I cannot do that."

I ask: "Would it help if I transformed?"

She nods. There the second surprise goes. I transform to bot mode. Carla stares at me for several seconds with big eyes. I think that's not only because the glasses make it look like that.

Then the same thing happens again. She puts her finger on the trigger, hesitates and steps back.

"I cannot. There's a human inside."

I start to get bored. Before I go into a simulation to kill waiting time I ask: "Lopez, would you take over?"

He pulls the trigger without hesitation. With a bright bang the salvo hits me and is repelled into all directions, depending on where which grin hit me, most of them to my front.

Carla stands there for some seconds like she turned to stone. Then she starts to run around to look at the bullet holes and to measure angles.

Lopez asks: "Which calibers do you permit us for further tests?"

"No one, only bird shot."

"You said we cannot shoot you dead, correct?"

"Yes, but do you know how much that hurts? The calibers are irrelevant, they are all repelled by my case. You can see the same effect with small bullets."

He nods: "Good. I promised you that nothing happens without your consent. Thanks, that was very informative."

"Really?" I ask with surprise. "The big robots have much defense and absorb the impacts instead of repelling them. I don't see how this helps you in any way."

As an answer he nods to Carla who is busy with her notes. Finally she comes to me and adjusts her glasses when she looks at me.

"May I?" She may. She touches my case where the pellets have left countless small dents. "Doesn't this hurt?"

I transform to human mode and lift my top. My skin is covered by tiny bruises, one per pellet. "No. That heals until tomorrow."

Nevertheless she shakes her head in shock and continues scribbling her notes.

Next they bring a strange device that looks to me like a satellite dish with half spheres made of plastic on it, a bigger one in the middle and several smaller ones in a circle around that. The dish is mounted on a black box.

"That is a new kind of EMP" Lopez explains. When I hear the word I flinch. It awakens awful memories.

Lopez saw it. He continues: "We regularly irradiate the Belt with it. If you haven't noticed anything before, you shouldn't do now."

I don't know. What's that suppose to mean? "Does it emit electromagnetic radiation that destroys electronics or doesn't it?"

"Yes, it emits electromagnetic radiation. No, it doesn't destroy them, it discharges them."

I have an idea. I know exactly which effect an EMP has on me, they don't. Maybe I can bear it for a while, only for a short time. The Martians have several pain killers in their drug collection. If they destroy my electronics, I will become uninteresting for their experiments. That could be my way to freedom.

"Okay" I say and put me in pose.

"Are you sure? You just turned a bit pale."

"Yes, just do it." I can't fool him. Not all the time.

They start to push some buttons and levers on the machine, then they tilt the satellite dish towards me.

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah-hea."

"At three?"

They count: "One, two, three."

In affect I throw myself on the ground, hands over my head. But nothing happens.

For several seconds I lie on the floor until Lopez releases me: "That was it. You can get up. What did you notice?"

I stand up wondering and feel ridiculous. Nothing has happened. That's an EMP, really? The only thing that happened is that my body temperature has dropped a bit out of fear.

"No?" I ask as answer.

The three exchange perplexed looks before Carla starts to write again.

"Would you please transform?" Lopez requests.

My sensors don't show anything unusual. Is it possible?

No, I transform successfully to bot mode and back to human mode. I cannot make out any differences. Maybe their machine is broken. Or it's a kind of placebo radiation. They only pretend to irradiate me to see if I show any reaction, then they know I'm lying.

Finally they bring the device away and bring another one in, which they put up in the room. It looks like three cuboids affixed to an upright standing cylinder.

"That is a common EMP. We don't expect any effects, like with the first one."

I agree three times that they are allowed to fire at me with that, so I can finally get this over. The waiting beforehand is unbearable compared to the happiness when the pain finally fades.

They activate the machine. In panic I widen my eyes when I feel the heat spreading in my bones. I start to scream.


	19. Experiments 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra is of no use anymore, but at least she has fun.

I awaken and feel bad. I'm hot. My limbs hurt at every movement. I lie in a bed, but I'm too confused to make out where. The blanket weights on my body and hurts. I want to throw it away, but every movement is worse than that. I have to wait. Man, that was a stupid idea. I had totally forgotten how bad it really feels. Hopefully it's worth it.

Soon a man who looks around if everything is alright sees that I'm awake. I recognize Mark. He comes to my bed. Smiling. Saying something. I don't understand a word. That sounds like gibberish to me. Did he say bread?

No, he asked a question. He waits for an answer. I just look at him not comprehending. He repeats the last part, the question. I hear bread again. That makes no sense. I don't know what to say.

He raises another question, one without bread. Again I don't know what to say.

He takes out his pad and interacts with it. I cannot see what he is doing. Suddenly the big screen at the wall makes noises, although the screen stays empty. I look at it wondering.

Mark sees my reaction. I understand. He tested if I can hear. I wish he would just leave me alone.

Now he shows the stylistic picture of a tree on the screen and points to it while he looks at me questioning. Probably he now tests my speaking ability. I'm not in the mood.

He shows the name below it. His finger slides below the letters and he flaps his hand a few times: Speak. Annoyed I turn my head away. No.

He switches off the screen and puts the pad aside. Then he gets a medi-scan, some kind of armlet with a screen and comes to my bed.

When he wants to grab my arm I squeak in anger and push him away. "Don't touch me." Probably he doesn't understand a word I'm saying, but my signs are unambiguous.

He retreats with disappointment and takes out a syringe. He shows it to me and asks the question with the bread again.

Oh, he wants to know if I need a pain killer. I consider it, but I don't know what that is or which dose, also the worst is over. I shake my head. Then demonstratively I lean backwards and close my eyes. He understands and leaves me alone.

After I needed to defend myself against more visits meanwhile I feel well enough to get up. I try to control the screen in my room with voice commands, but it doesn't understand what I'm saying.

I come to attention when I run through the institute, but I ignore that and go to Mark in his office. I don't know who else to ask.

He looks at me in surprise. "Dictionary" I say, then I flap my hand a few times like he did and move my hands apart as if I'm opening a book.

He doesn't understand. Are there no books on Mars anymore? I try it again. "Dictionary" I say again, repeat the talking gesture and then I pretend to wipe over a screen.

Ah, now he understands. He nods and goes with me to my sick room, where he controls the screen with his pad and opens the program with the stylistic pictures. Okay, that would work for now. He gives me the pad.

Then he says something and points to the bed.

I ignore the gesture and quickly find the lexicon in the program. First I need the word for No. Ah, I know that one.

"No" I say and keep standing where I am while I scroll through the lexicon and think about which words I need next. I have laid around for long enough.

Mark looks at me confused. Then he gets the medi-scan and I allow him to put it on me while I learn words. "Metal. Food. Ouch." That should be fast. My brain has already seen most of the words because I have said them at some point.

Mark looks at the screen of the medi-scan and gives me a thumbs-up. "Good."

I look up the words I see there. My temperature has decreased. All values are normal. Only the ferric is too low. I assume that the self-repairing has already started.

Then Mark points to the screen and to me and asks a question. I don't understand, but one word sounds like speaking.

I answer: "Metal speaks. Metal broken. Speaks broken." Actually I wanted to train my brain with modern English. But I haven't find the time to. Somehow I thought I wouldn't need that anymore.

He nods understanding and leaves me alone.

Soon he returns with Carla. The woman speaks quickly and looks at me distressed, then she chats with Mark who replies anything defensively.

She asks me a question. I don't understand a word and just answer: "banana".

Both look at me confused. I suppress a grin.

Then Mark says something to me, opens the door and makes an inviting gesture to it. Carla goes out. I answer: "soup" and follow her. They are confused again. Let's see how long this game is funny.

I just take the pad along with me and keep scrolling through the dictionary while I mumble words.

We go down into the room with the sand walls. I look at them slightly nervous, but this time there is no weapon.

Mark points to the ground in the room and says something to me. I answer: "strawberry milk".

Carla makes her notes. Yes, write down strawberry milk, that is very important.

Mark gently takes the pad out of my hands and searches in the dictionary for a picture he shows me. "Robot." He points to me and to the ground in the room and repeats "robot".

Oh, he wants me to transform. The room is shielded they remember.

"Robot broken" I just say. They look at each other blankly. Then Carla hesitatingly takes more notes. I take the pad out of Mark's hands and keep learning while I wait for what next they want from me.

They start to discuss something and speak so fast I don't understand any word.

Eventually they bring me to a room full of technical devices that somehow reminds me of the lab of the Doc. With distrust I see how they get a device with a screen, which is connected per cable to a mushroom-shaped thing.

Mark takes the mushroom out of its holder while Carla goes to retrieve anything else.

Mark points to the mushroom, then to me and holds the mushroom with its cap into my direction. I think he wants to hold it onto me to examine me. With distrust I give him my arm - the inner side. The slits are on the outer side. Theoretically speaking I could tell them about the slits so they could directly examine my electronics. But I don't. I can't have it that they start putting their hands into my body.

Carla brings a tube with guck which she puts onto my arm before putting the mushroom onto it and then see a 3d model of the inner life of my arm on the screen.

I don't see much. At this level it looks like an arm with massive bones in it. Only if they zoom in very much I see the filigree electronics which had to grow especially small to fit into the restricted space, but somehow it looks odd. The shapes of the conducting tissues are blurry and sometimes touch each other.

Mark and Carla look at each other and talk about what they see. Now they know I'm saying the truth and that my electronics are broken. That means I'm basically a human and not interesting for further experiments.

Soon I have another one of my talks with Lopez. He asks me: "How is it running?"

I stare at him not comprehending for some seconds before I understand. He asks how I am. "God, god." No, that sounds odd. "Goat? Good?" I mumble. Yes, that sounds right. "Good, good."

He nods empathetic. Then he starts a video on his pad and slides it to me.

I want to say "broccoli", but it gets stuck in my throat.

The video shows me screaming in the sand room how I scrap my head on the wall on the senseless search for anything that cools the bones inside of me - I don't remember anything of this, but I understand watching it. People rush to me, try to calm me down, but I push them away, lash out. They hold me and one gives me an injection. I calm down, but it becomes even worse, because I start to babble, to sing and to dance. I tell Carla how cute she is when she understands nothing and I demand loudly that Lopez spanks me. While I say everything in my mother tongue in my antique Earth dialect they have everything on tape and I'm sure they already analyzed it. That's why I see a slightly smirk on Lopez's face. Man, how embarrassing.

Still with that slightly smirk he asks: "Do you answer my questions? Or do I need to spank you first?"

My face burns in shame that I feel like a light bulb.

Then he continues totally objective: "Please keep for yourself what private stuff you're doing in your simulations."

He's teasing me, but I cannot help and put my head onto the table. "I ... I didn't."

Probably he thinks I slept with him in a simulation and doesn't believe me. If I would tell him what I actually did it would be worse. Best thing is I don't say anything anymore.

I go to the doctor who gave me the pain killer and explain to him, that parts of my body are made from metal and he has to use a lower dose for me.

"I injected you THC, an old substance from Earth, that's the right thing for you."

"You're probably calculating the dose based on my body weight?"

"Of course, the dose was exactly right for you."

"Half of my body is made of metal where no blood flows and the drug is not spread."

"Oh."

"And the metal is heavier than my human flesh. You gave me an overdose. Next time take a quarter of that. Best thing is you don't give me any substances if it isn't absolutely necessary."

"You screamed in strong pain."

I sigh. "Of course. But in other cases only in emergencies."

I sit sunk down, hopeless at the table, the head buried under my hands. Everything is pointless. They will never let me go. They will continue to experiment one me, like the Decepticons did. Someday they will start to break me down. I'm nothing else for them than a machine, an item without any rights they can treat as they like. I should break out at the next opportunity, sneak into a ship to Earth and disappear.

Lopez comes in.

I hear how he puts his pad onto the table. I'm not in the mood to talk to him. What is that even, an intelligence test? Shall I multiply four-digit numbers with each other like a stupid calculator?

He says: "That was it. You can leave now."

I sit up straight. "What? Really?"

"Yes, you're free."

Is that a trick? He slides the pad to me where the forms are shown, partly filled. Indeed. The uppermost is a form to apply for Mars citizenship, below that - I wipe with the finger to the next one - some statement of the government that everything is fine and several more applications, allocation of work, flat, ID and so on. I ... I cannot believe it. They really let me go.

Wait a second, Mars citizenship? I remember how Margret told me the Mars wanted to attract young girls and I should take care that the same doesn't happen to me. Was that a joke or a serious advice?

"Sorry." I smile embarrassed. I think about how to put this most diplomatic. "That's for the migration to Mars, right? I'm from Earth and would like to return to it, is that possible?"

Lopez explains to me that I don't have a residence on Earth and I would need to apply for Earth citizenship, but that's nearly impossible due to overpopulation. "Mars accepts you. You are free to visit Earth then."

Okay, that doesn't sound too bad. When I'm on Earth I can still consider if I want to return or run away and disappear. I sign with the finger on the pad.

"Welcome to Mars" Lopez says. "You can keep this."

He points to the pad. I look at it wondering. That's his or isn't it?

"Don't you recognize it? That's the pad you lost on the passenger ship. From the simulation I knew where your seat was."

I ... I cannot believe it. I have bought the pad as crutch, because I was scared to directly connect to the net. In the last opened programs before the forms I find the link to the ID database, before that an access to the music library and a dictionary about the currently used languages on Earth. It's really mine.

"It's an old model, because Ceres only sells leftovers from Earth and Mars. But for the start it may fulfill it's purpose."

"Thanks. I don't know what to say." Still I stare at the screen and can barely comprehend it. Like an old computer I'm stuck in the loop of my thoughts.

"Good bye" he says and gives me a hand. "And good luck on Mars."


	20. Work for Mars 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra gets used to her new work in the research facility.

They think I'm a human. How convenient. They don't know that nothing could be further from the truth. I will take the chance and wait. When my powers return one day - and I'm sure they will, they always did - then I will keep it for myself. Here nobody stabs me in the back.

The Mars allocates living space to its citizens. I get my own, small flat in the same district - that is one of those areas under a dome - like the research facility, where I also work. I can't say I was qualified for any kind of work, but they probably know what they're doing.

I learn from the news - my kitchen wall is a big screen and also works as a TV - that the Donnager, the flagship of Mars, continued on its mission in space. Lopez said goodbye to me, because his task here is completed and he's back to his actual work - to drag secrets out of people. I wish him much fun.

The research center where I work I already know well as I quickly realize. Carla who was involved in the experiments on me picks me up at the entrance, because only people with special permissions have access to the facility. Which I get today.

"I'm glad you're here to help me with the work. The request process to write out jobs and the application process itself are a catastrophe." Nice that I'm not the only one who has problems with the bureaucracy on this sphere.

She shows me my work place which is in the same office as hers. Pink plush slippers stand below her desk which she exchanges with her current boots. Already I get my first task and she drives a dolly with electronic parts to me.

"Here" she explains to me. "You apply different voltages here, okay? 1 volt, 2 volt, 5 volt, 10 volt. See if anything happens. And write it into this table."

I look at the first part. That looks like a piece of armor. Nothing will happen without it's attached anywhere.

"What's that good for?" I ask carefully. "There's nothing that could react to the voltage."

"I know, I know" she says understanding and a bit on the strain. She's always a bit on the strain. "It's necessary to execute these tests and to document everything, so afterwards it's easier to fathom and to analyze. Just do it anyway, although you know what will happen."

Very well, I might be wrong. I just measure some values and when I'm sure that nothing will change I just fill in the other fields. They probably want to know that the parts won't explode under load.

The next part reminds me of a bone piece in the tail of a quadrupedal and looks as if it could form a long chain with others of its kind. Here, too, nothing happens and I'm quickly done.

The next part is some gill-like construct that is part of a ventilation system and can open and close. But not at the voltages I shall apply.

Carla seems to be very busy at the moment and analyzes some data with the help of diagrams. I ask her anyway. She will let me know if I'm interrupting her.

"Carla, this part doesn't react to the voltages, but it should do anything."

"You may try out another ones if it doesn't cost too much time. Otherwise just put it aside and continue with the others."

I think it reacts to a special signal combination, but I cannot produce it with this device, so I turn to my computer.

I try to remember the Cybertronian word for "open" and to make the computer produce a voltage signal that sounds like that, with all the machine noises that make up the sounds of the Cybertronian language. That is very long winded. It would be easier to produce the sounds in a mechanical way and to just call off the resulting voltage pattern, but this should work as well.

Carla is absorbed in her work and doesn't react. The sounds I produce sound like usual background noises which you might hear when you handle machine parts.

While tinkering around I lose my sense of time. Only when it knocks at the door I stop working. Mark, the other scientist, steps in. He gives Carla a kiss. "Are you coming to lunch?" He turns to me. "Seldra, you also want something?"

I imagine we're going somewhere outside. "Yes, something with much iron. Liver or spinach or something" I guess out of the blue.

Both look at me awkwardly.

Then Mark smiles. "Let's see what we can do."

Soon I learn what this is supposed to mean. We go into the "kitchen".

The preparation of food consists in combining nutrient powder with a base that makes up the consistency and to add any flavor. Or to put it like that: ingredients and flavor are totally independent of each other. What shall I do with all that choice? I only want to eat something.

Carla and Mark are busy people. They prepare the allround nutrient mix as a mash.

I'm not hungry enough, so I start playing. Can I make a salad with the contents of steak and the taste of strawberries? Yes I can, but the leaves are too thick and too soft and the taste is terrible.

They both laugh friendly while I chew on my food. "I also did that on my first days" Mark remembers. "I wasn't that creative, but I made a licorice drink. Disgusting."

"I always wanted to try, but I never have time" Carla adds her version. "Maybe tomorrow."

"What are you working on?" I ask Mark.

"At the moment I try to make an armor similar to yours. That exposes itself when the need arises."

"How do you make sure that the body doesn't repel the modules?"

He smiles embarrassed. "That's a good question. I can't. At least after some decades they need to be renewed. You don't happen to know how it works for you, do you?"

I shake my head. He thinks that I was born like this, but when I think about that, the time I've spend awake in my human mode is much less than that. So the real question is, what comes first: The human body that repels the machine parts or the machine parts that take over the rest of the body?

After lunch Carla and I return to our office. Carla sees that I'm still busy with the ventilation part and asks if I make progress.

I point to my screen. "I think this part reacts to a special voltage pattern, but I don't manage to produce the right one."

She looks at it and fixes her glasses. She looks for a long time.

I explain: "The Cybertronian language sounds like noises made by machines." I point to a section in the code. "That's supposed to sound as if a motor pulls at a piston. And this like the clicking of a switch."

Again she stares for a while. "We humans don't understand anything yet about these things, do we?"

I laugh. "No, you don't."

She takes off her glasses and rubs her forehead. "Can you give me more examples?"

I sigh. "My mechanics are broken and I cannot process Cybertronian language anymore. I try to remember."

At least I can explain my name to her. Se'eldra - The different sounds when a big Cybertronian sends data to a small one or prepares the sending of data. Sadr'khor - a Cybertronian transforms to a disguise at a small, hidden place. Or something like that. I cannot recall anyone ever listened to me with that much curiosity and attention as Carla does.

"Oh well" she says. "How do you cope with having lost all these abilities at once? That must be terrible."

I would have needed to cry a while about that to be more convincing? But I don't. "It's not that bad, I couldn't do much anyway. I'm more worried about what happens if one of them attacks me while I can't defend myself, but at the moment I'm safe."

She asks: "May I have a look at this? Would you just continue with the other parts, is that okay?"

Because I'm working on this for so long without making progress that the task becomes boring I agree and continue to measure the other parts.

Later that evening Carla still sits at her work. My original plan was to leave work together with her to adapt to the local habits, but I'm already very tired.

When I tell her she says: "It's fine, just go home. I will stay a bit longer."

Okay, if she says so. I go on my way.

While I have dinner I sit in front of the TV as I'm used to. That's my cultural education.

"Oh Ares, I miss Earth so much. The endless sky, the endless sea. I wish you would come home with me. My family will give us a piece of land where we can build our house."

"Sofie, you know that the Mars is my home. Stay here with me. One day we will also have an endless sky and an endless sea."

Yes, that's what I thought. That explains the requests for simulations.

Suddenly something rumbles in my ventilation duct and I startle. It sounds as if a stone fell into it. How curious. Quietly I get up and carefully move closer to the duct cover.

In the slits I see something silvery shining. It moves back and forth. Finally I hear a well-known pattern of machine noises.

"Oh, Missy!" I recognize it because of it's size. "Wait, I open up for you."

I search for a fitting tool and open the cover. Missy jumps out of the duct onto the ground and makes noises.

"Honey, I don't understand a word you're saying" I smile apologizing. "I have to wait until my system recovered. Would you please tell the others where I am and tell them to come here and wait?"

Missy hesitates for a moment, but I'm sure this time it's no pause for reflection, because finally the Cavecon nods with its whole body.

The next few days the Cavecons arrive in my flat one by one, where they give up their hide-and-seek and can fight each other as much as they want. As long as it doesn't disturb the neighbors, that is.


	21. Work for Mars 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra questions her work and visits Margret.

When I come to work early in the next morning I find Carla sleeping with the head on her desk. The opening of the door wakes her. Sleepy with strains that hang out messy of her hair she looks at me. She takes off her glasses and rubs her tired eyes while she smudges her make-up. Beside her on the desk lie a switch and a piston.

I'm shocked. "Did you work the whole night?"

"No. Only until four I guess."

"Take a break."

"I know, I know." She puts on her glasses. "I should do that, but it's just so interesting. I need to know if this works. Just give me some minutes."

I grin. Okay, I understand. But I don't like it.

She needs another two hours. Then she send the generated signal to the ventilation part - and it opens!

I stare to her. I'm so surprised I don't know what to say.

Carla smiles satisfied. Then she sends the same signal again, but nothing happens.

She's disappointed. "Probably it needs to close first before it can open again?"

I nod. This is easy to guess.

Then she leans back and thinks while she looks at her work. Because nothing happens I continue with my tasks.

Finally Carla asks: "Does this work with all electronic devices? For instance can I control a computer with that? Although the producer didn't made it for that?"

I answer without emotion: "Of course computers have so much respect and follow every order given in Decepticon dialect." I laugh.

Carla just looks at me wondering. "What does that mean? How do you produce patterns with a dialect?"

I explain: "That was a joke. Autobot dialect also works." I laugh again.

Carla still doesn't understand: "Are you saying that the devices follow a signal even if it is slightly altered?"

She copies the signal to her pad and requests me to follow her into the kitchen while she tries out something.

She sends the open-command to the coffee machine. Nothing happens. "This should work, shouldn't it?"

"What kind of opening mechanics does the coffee machine have?"

That's a good question. Carla opens the machine by hand and thoroughly looks at the mechanics. "It's an interlock that holds the door."

"Then you need the voltage pattern of an opening interlock, not of a piston" I explain.

"Isn't that circumstantial to have different expressions for different mechanics?"

"No?" I never thought of that. When I'm a machine and speak Cybertronian language everything comes automatically.

"What if I want to give the coffee machine the order to make coffee? How would the signal need to look like?"

"Then you use the buttons." I laugh. "I have no idea." I would need to exactly know the mechanics that are involved and address them in order - or parallel - in the right way. As a human I lack the knowledge.

Carla looks at me disillusioned. We return to the office. She goes home over noon to get some sleep, but later she returns freshly styled, but still looking tired and says she couldn't close an eye due to excitement over the new discovery.

I had a look around in the facility and I found a huge pile of documents about different parts, but no word about who builds them and where? I ask Carla about that.

She answers: "When we have documented what the parts do they are examined in greater detail and blueprints are made from them, then you make a prototype of each and look for applications. Only if all details are clear they are used outside of the lab."

"Who builds the parts before there are blueprints of them?"

"They are random discoveries. I'll show you another time."

In the next days she shows it to me. It's a hall full of scrap hills where some workers sort out parts which shall be researched or disposed. I'm disappointed. Also it doesn't explain anything.

"The scrap is delivered to us" Carla explains and I wonder how deep I need to go into this rabbit whole before the cat bites her own tail.

Sometimes I get different tasks. Carla request me: "Can you set up an appointment for a hologramm conference with the other research facilities? And then rent some bandwidth on a satellite for the transmission."

I wonder: "What ... do you want to discuss with them? The voltage patterns I showed to you?" I ask myself if it was a good idea to show this to humans. Actually I only tried it for myself. But Carla is so sympathetic and interested like a small child. I could not help but to tell her.

"Oh no, no. That I have to carefully research and write down reproducibly before I can share it. These could all be coincidences up until now. No, we talk like every two weeks what we did, for information exchange. If we have discovered something interesting or something we think would fit better to another facility."

Then it's fine for now. I open the respective calendar and search for a fitting time frame. "Wait a second, we rent a satellite?"

"We are not connected to the common net, to make access hard for intruders" she explains to me. "Formerly we had our own research satellite for exchange with the other research facilities, but then it crashed into the western deposit and it's hard to get a new one, especially because the crash of the old one is not fully cleared up."

"Oh." I feel a strange concernment. "When did it crash?"

"Hm, that was last year or the year before that. It was really strange. First it moves on it's course and suddenly - bam. No response and some days later a call from the security guys who found it's wrack."

I remember how I landed in a deposit. Whoops.

Then I knocked again on Margret's door. She let me in and directed me to make myself comfortable on her couch. She offered me tea and chocolate. She went slowly and heavily and I asked, if I may helped myself, but she only said that I was her guest and she would kick me out if I got anything myself. As I knew her.

For herself she brought a bottle of beer. She sat down onto the couch and grabbed her pad to switch on TV.

"Finally you are back. Today the series finale is aired again. You owe me one." Of course she wasn't completely serious.

"Then we better not do it" I joked. "The episode will go differently than you remember."

"So what, I won't see a difference." She laughed shrilling like I knew it.

I became sentimental. "I made high light of you, but now you're dead. I would've liked to meet you again and to thank you for your help."

"You don't need to. It was nice to have some company that doesn't stare at me all the time." She laughs again.

"Did you know what I really am? You never asked me. You helped me without knowing me."

"Toots, if you are as old as me nobody takes me for a fool. I didn't knew what your secret was until you told me. But it was obvious you had one."

Whoops, I let the tea bag in the water for too long. Oh, it was no tea bag, but one of these artificial tea substitution powders. I took a sip. I have had worse.

"Maybe you can give me a tip" I asked her. "I have a crush on a Martian, totally trashy. But he is married and I think he was sent by the government to sound me out. He's very nice and helped me to get an official status. Now he's gone, but I have to think about him all the time. He ... was so smart in making me telling him all my secrets, that was so impressive. It's like he's still watching me and comes in through the door any moment to ask me questions and I want to tell him everything he wants to know."

"Ouch. Toots, don't let men trick you. You deserve something better."

"Yes, I know." I covered my face with my hands to hide my shame. "He even made me migrate to Mars although you had warned me. I guess, at least."

"That's what I did? I can't remember."

I pulled myself away. That got strange. "We can continue later. I'm coming to visit your grave."

"You don't need to. I won't notice it anyway."

I ignored her with a smile and left the simulation.

I go into the graveyard building. On Mars there is no space for graves. There are no bodies anyway. Margret's body was processed to fertilizer as it is common to feed the limited fields. For relatives there are these graveyard buildings with holograms of the deceased spread over several levels.

"Hello Margret. Here I am." I sit down on the chair in front of her place. "How are you?"

The hologram of her stares straight out of her scarred eyes and stays silent.

"I brought you something."

I take two things out of my bag.

A bar of chocolate. The good one, imported from Earth which I now place in front of her. "Is this human food anyway? There are barely any artificial additives. No, please, I was just kidding." I laugh about my joke. It would be an understatement to speak about additives on Mars.

Then I put an empty bottle of beer beside the chocolate. "Before you ask: No, I just poured it away. Don't look at me like that. You know I can't take it. And you shouldn't drink either way given your current state. Here. Let me show you a trick."

While nobody is watching I grab into my top, into the slit on my chest and into my metal core. A part of my metal takes on a new shape. I pull it out. It's a white rose, which I put in the beer bottle as a vase.

"Thanks, thanks. Keep it to yourself. I need to manage my resources. No, don't worry, that looks like a usual metal rose. As long as no one has a deeper look, nobody will notice anything."

I sit there for a while silently and think about what I could say.

"I can't believe you're dead. It's as if this is just one of your pranks. But I saw the documents, so ... man, what a bureaucratic mess to find your grave. I would have come earlier. Also ... well ... I was sick, kinda. Now I'm well again, thanks for asking."

I stay silent for another while.

"Ehm, I don't have anything else to say. Probably I won't come back again, because I live in another district. Also we can see each other in the simulation. Thanks for everything. Take care and good bye."

I leave her together with her gifts.


	22. Work for Mars 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra is sent to a research mission.

Carla lent me out for a small research mission so I come out of the lab for a while and see something else. I asked her if she is really sure and gets along without me and she only said there is always more work than one can do and she is totally fine if I make myself useful somewhere else.

Now I work on a ship called Arvander. Work is said too much. I'm standing in the corridor simulating when the Captain comes along - whoops - and pulls me out.

She addresses me: "Miss Sadkor, why aren't you working?"

"I finished everything."

She looks at me with disbelieve. "Did you analyze the radiation data of the last couple of hours? The transmission traffic? Did you fix the bug in the engine's software?"

I answer without emotion: "The respective messages all are in your inbox."

She lifts her pad and glances on it. "Hm. Then make me a report about the energy usage of the systems."

I analyze them on my inner system and touch my pad to send them. "Already done."

The Captain is speechless, but quickly catches herself and hisses: "Then ... then do anything else. Anything. But don't stand around twiddling your thumbs!"

I leave and roll my eyes when she can't see it. Then I will have to make something up or at least pretend to do so. I don't even now what my job here is. I finished the tasks I got here at the beginning much faster than expected and then I got more and more others to keep me busy, but instead they only cause more work for the other people who need to look at the results. No idea what else I shall do.

I'm just going through the options when someone of the new recruits runs to me in the corridor. "Seldra, sorry for disturbing you, but the coffee machine is defect again."

How can you build all technologies at the example of a Decepticon and expect them to always do what you want from them? Human technology always causes any problems, no wonder.

I let him guide me to the kitchen. The big block with the uninformative messages on the small screen and the controls that are so complicated that you need to hang the manual beside it at the wall is obviously human technology. "Service requested" it says.

I pretend to push some buttons and communicate wirelessly with the machine. It has no other choice but to obey me, but some of the requested data are incomplete. Quickly I find the culprit: Some condensed water that causes a bypass.

"So, works again" I say when I removed it.

Like one dying from thirst in the desert the soldier approaches the machine: "Ehm, now it says the lit is open?"

I give the machine a slap onto the badly mounted lit to make it snap into place and smile at the soldier. Then because I lack a better task I disappear into my room and start to analyze the data from our surroundings in every detail and to visualize them in my home simulation hovering over the sea.

I let the sun set to work in front of a dark background. Because we were near the Belt I saw asteroids in the data. Rocks, rocks and more rocks. Rocks that hovered over the sea of my home simulation as glowing objects like stars, which I turned in whole to look at them. Big rocks, small rocks, rocks in all shapes. Common rocks, some more interesting rocks if we were to look for resources - I spotted the asteroids with a high portion of metal by their higher reflection, they glowed more than others - for me just boring rocks.

They were so many I wasn't feeling like looking at every single one of them, but my human brain was better in spotting irregularities than the machine who looked at all data without emotion. I didn't even know what or if I would find something, so I couldn't tell the machine what to search for.

Let's assume there was something, how could it look like? I tried to see the data from different perspectives. I reduced the view to the infrared wavelengths and saw warmer rocks clearer than cold ones. Also boring. Ultraviolet - boring. Radio waves - everything full of noise. Radioactivity.

I stopped. Radioactivity was strange. I saw some glowing points that didn't really correspond to the asteroids. When zooming in I saw that their sources where on or at the sides of asteroids, some of them even far away from them. They were too small to get a complete picture with the measurement points I had.

What was that? I compared the data with the ships that were currently located in the Belt - no correlation. With the mines. With research stations. Nothing fitted. Could these be pirates? The points didn't move. Hard to say.

I thought it was time to end the analyzing and to report my findings.

I report my discovery to the Captain, show her the prepared data on a picture how I saw them. She talks to her officers and they decide to postpone their actual mission and to find out what the source of this radiation is. It's only a small way round through the Belt and we are on a research mission anyway.

When we are close enough to see it on the screen, I recognize with surprise: Oh. That's Rage. And since our fight back then on Earth he grew a lot.

Rage is Megatron's space ship of the new generation. I associate some unpleasant memories with him. But something is wrong - from that distance he should have already sensed me and reacted, but nothing. The data of the systems say that only a bit radiation emits from him - it was a miracle that I found him in the data at all - also I see rust stains on his hull. He's close to his end.

After everything I've experienced back on Earth with him. I was so scared of him. He was like a force of nature you can't escape of. I thought he would haunt me until the end of my life or I would die in a battle against him and now he finds his end in such an unspectacular way. That's somehow unworthy.

"No sign of life" I report when looking on my pad. "I think it's save to have a look around."

The Captain nods. "Take a reconnaissance ship. I give you some crew members. We stay in contact. If anything moves nearby you return immediately."

She doesn't need to tell me. I'm the last one who wants to stay if Rage's crew returns.

The reconnaissance ship Mockingbird is a small ship made for small scout flights. With five people we fly close to Rage. I cannot tell who of us is more concerned - me, who knows about his abilities or them, who don't. Even if I know he doesn't do anything seeing him makes me feel uneasy.

We put on our space suits. Our pilot flies the Mockingbird to the side of Rage and connects the gate. We prepare to weld an entrance into his hull, which causes me pain by just thinking about that.

But when we get close to the hull we see a door, exactly the right size for humans.

I wonder if this is a trap. At least there is still a glim of life in him and Rage prefers to cooperate before we damage him even more.

The Russian guy - I call him like that because of his accent, maybe I'm wrong - steps in first. I go most reluctantly - an old habit - but nothing happens. Behind me another man and a woman follow.

The light is dim in she ship, only some kind of emergency light is glowing. Then I remember something and take off my helmet.

Instantly the woman screams: "What are you doing?" Then she realizes how unnecessary that is, because I'm fine.

Shortly after the others take off their helmets one after the other and look at each other wondering while I have a look at the control console.

The last man asks: "How did you know there is oxygen here?"

"Well, Cybertronians also research neural networks" I reply. Probably they don't get the hint.

Before I have the chance to push a button the screen lightens up. I feel how Rage looks at me, but still he doesn't react.

"Hello Rage. Where is your crew?"

I hear the woman whispering to my direction: "Why is it called like that? This sounds dangerous."

"Ah, don't worry, he's peaceful. You just shouldn't anger him."

"And why are you talking about it as if it was living?"

I ignore her and watch the images on the screen. Rage shows me how Megatron shouts at Starscream, who shouts back, then Megatron kicks him out of the ship near an asteroid and waves to the others to follow him.

If I correctly interpret the time stamp then this was a long time ago. Too bad that I lost all my data to the EMP and had to readjust my clock. I can only say that this has happened some month before the EMP. Since then they haven't returned. I assume that something has happened to them and I think we should look around on that asteroid.

From the movement of the ship and the movement data of the asteroids I know I calculate the current position. I share my thoughts with the others and our pilot who staid on the Mockingbird contacts the Arvander for a status update and new orders.

They trust me with controlling Rage - at least that's what it looks like to them. In reality he obeys me. Actually he is Megatron's ship, but he understands my intentions and cooperates.

Followed by the Arvander I fly ahead - Rage knows where, but he seems to be burned out and flies fairly slowly. Finally I see him on the screen - Megatron, a lifeless pile of scrap lies on one of the asteroids.

I assume that one of his tantrums burned out his last energy reserve. I let Rage "land" at a fitting position - it's more of a hovering at the same position - and get out. I find Megatron pathetic - once a frightening, mighty leader who could could close in anytime like a storm if made angry, now heavily rusted and collapsed.

Carefully the others follow me. The robot still has an impressive size.

I go towards him. Suddenly he moves - he's alive, still functioning. He raises his cannon and points it to me.

Because the others are standing in a straight line behind me I do the only thing that makes sense to me in this moment: I transform. And break out of the space-suit like an alien beast that hatches from an egg.

Megatron with surprise points the cannon upwards as he doesn't want to risk hitting me. "Did you finally came to finish off our species" he mumbles.

Then he sees the humans behind me and points the cannon to the Russian guy who has left the line to look somewhere else on the asteroid.

I jump to Megatron, connect the tip of my tail with his neck and switch him off before he can do any damage. Then I look at him with pity, this pile of scrap.

After everything he did to me I still cannot hate him. All this time I didn't know where he is and what he does, if he's bushwhacking somewhere for me. I feared to meet him again and his anger. And now this: A despicable pile of old metal. I feel better knowing where he is and that he cannot do a thing. I want to suggest to put him into a museum on Mars. His technology isn't of any use anyway in this state. If other Decepticons come to pick him up I will hear about that.

When I turn around to get Rage closer I see how the others stare at me. Well, there goes my disguise.

The man who stands the furthest from me even points a gun to me. I pretend as if nothing unusual happened.

"Lost properties especially on research missions belong to Mars" I send them. "Let's load them in."

I move Rage slowly with open tailgate backwards to Megatron. Thanks to the barely existing gravity I can move Megatron on my own into Rage. On the same asteroid some feet away I find Starscream - also still, heavily rusted and dented - and load him in as well. Then I look around, try to match the pictures from Rage with what I'm seeing.

I expose my jet engines and fly to some asteroids nearby. On one I find Shockwave. Soundwave drifts freely nearby.

When all of them are picked up I transform in Rage and report to the Arvander. The Captain tells me: "You should've not transformed. Your second nature is top secret. Only the government and chosen people from military and science know about it."

"But if he he'd shot me I would've transformed anyway. And he had killed the crew members behind me."

She sighs and doesn't say anything else. The Mars is sparsely populated and everyone is busy, everyone is important. Sometimes a human life is more important than a secret.

Back again we have to wait for several days in a far orbit around Mars because of any bureaucratic stuff. I'm so tired of this. What takes them so long?

I'm getting impatient and write a message to the Captain. I hope this hasn't anything to do with me.

She answers: "Mars doesn't want to let an alien spaceship land on its surface. They ask why we took them here and I told them I only followed the rules."

I'm totally fine with this. I also agree to leave Rage in the orbit and only to take the four Cons into custody.

She writes more: "That is not the correct process to import alien technologies."

"Wait, there are rules for that?"

She sends me the paragraphs she references to, but they don't say anything about "alien": "The rules when finding lost property especially technologies say that when there is no obvious owner nearby they become property of Mars. The ground station says that this applies to single technologies, not to complete alien robots.

"Why would you have rules for importing complete alien robots?"

She answers that this is exactly the point that makes the decision hard. It will take some more time.

After two weeks, two damn weeks the waiting is finally over and indeed they decide to transport the Cons with their own transporters to Mars under strict safety regulations and to leave Rage in the orbit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About that "Rage is Megatron's ship" thing. I decided that as a warlord Megatron can have as many ships as he wants, so here he has at least two.


	23. Work for Mars 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Decepticons are examined. Seldra discovers the secret behind Mars's technologies.

On one of my reconnaissance trips - probably this big, empty hall was a hangar for space ships or something - I espied Rage, in his space ship mode neatly parked in a corner.

In the first moment the upcoming memories paralyzed me. Then I also remembered that his mission was fulfilled, so there shouldn't be any danger. He never really harmed me.

"Oh, you are complete again."

Because the tail gate was open I went in and sat down beside the black pillar.

"I'm somehow relieved that you are still alive. I didn't mean to destroy you, only that you leave me alone. I was so scared of you. Now you are probably the only other being in the universe that is like me. Strange, how things develop."

I stayed silent for a while, waited for something like a response. "I never heard you talking. Are you not able to talk or are you just the thinking type?"

I grinned. "Or is it me? Am I not worthy to hear your thoughts?"

Did he listen to me anyway? There was an easy way to find out. "Rage, you know what the difference is between us? I'm the one with a brain."

A flap opened at the pillar. A ray of a transparent liquid splashed into my face. Ew.

I wiped my face with my hands. Wait, this tasted sweet, what was that?

M-426237 seemed to have heard me and appeared in the entrance. "Human, come out this instant. You are not allowed to go there."

"Of course I'm allowed. We are old friends. Aren't we, Rage? Tell him how I dismantled you with nothing but a screwdriver." I prepared myself to dodge another "attack" but Rage had gained back his self control.

"Stop this nonsense!" M-426237 came in, grabbed me while I tried to run away and clamped me under his arm like a small child.

"You said yourself: I'm allowed to go anywhere where my small feet carry me" I reminded him when I got an idea. "Oh, I understand. YOU are not allowed to be here, right?"

He didn't comment on that.

While M-426237 carried me away I waved to Rage. "Good bye, Rage. I'll come and visit you again!"

When I come into the scrap hall, I get horrified when I see how the workers saw open the Decepticons. I'm feeling bad. "What ... what are you doing? Stop it!"

They look at me wondering. "We open them so we can research them."

"But not like this!" I'm close to vomit. "That's as if you watch aliens cut open humans when they are full conscious."

He shakes his head in disbelieve. "These are machines. They don't have feelings."

I tear my hair, but pull myself together. Stay calm, they don't know any better. I need to explain it to them.

I climb up to them and he switches off the saw.

"Here, look."

I point to a piece of chassis at the inside of the arm against the light. "Do you see that small lines? You apply a low voltage here and there."

I plug out the power supply of a monitor and show how to do it. "Then the part opens by itself, completely without destruction."

The chassis opens at that position so we can see the parts below it. The worker stares at it with big eyes. "That's ... incredible."

"That's simple Cybertronian transformation mechanic. Leave the saw away, got it?"

Then I need to leave the hall until I feel better.

I can barely concentrate on my work in the research facility. Damn, I made a mistake. I just want to know where Megatron is and what he does, but not that the humans tear him apart. Again. Hm, probably they will quickly leave him alone when they realize that they already know everything they could learn from him.

Beside that my little trick got around and all the time any worker comes in to ask how to take this or that apart.

Carla is annoyed. "I cannot concentrate myself with all that talking. What's so hard to do?"

The worker explains: "Miss Sadr'khor showed us how to gently take the broken robots apart. Whatever this is good for. But it's interesting to know."

I disagree: "They are not broken, whatever this is supposed to mean. They are machines that don't die like humans. You can repair a lot. Imagine someone cuts you open while you are in a coma. Maybe they feel it. I think it's cruel to do this."

Carla says: "Machines don't have a nervous system. According to our current state of knowledge that means they don't feel pain. Can you prove your statement?"

"Excuse me? That's as if a Cybertronian would claim a human would feel no pain, because they don't have sensors. I've never heard such a nonsense. And I grew up among machines."

"I'm not saying they don't. I just ask for a proof."

"How shall I prove that? I'm half a machine. I feel it. How do you prove that animals feel pain? Shall I give you a robot arm that twitches if you give it an electric shock?" That's indeed not an easy task. Of course Cybertronians show reactions, but how shall I prove that they feel pain at the same time?

Carla takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. "That's not my field. Please discuss this with Mark."

"I don't care if you believe me. I just want that you are careful with the Decepticons ... with the robots."

"Then please go and help the workers in the hall. You can do your tasks tomorrow" Carla decides and sends me out.

Actually I don't know how much life is left in them. I wait until the workers leave to go home, then I make sure that no one else is in the scrap hall and go to Megatron. They quickly realized that they couldn't learn anything new from him and turned away. I grow my tail and say hello.

This time I did it without a nice environment. I didn't want to cause any misunderstandings about where we were. For us it looked like we were in a black, empty world.

"Conmother." He noticed my presence. I concluded that only his energy reserve was empty, but otherwise he was fully functional. "Did you finally manage to help the humans succeed over the machines."

"I always tried to talk to you and to find a solution."

"There was nothing to talk about. Everything would be fine if you had just done what I told you to do."

"I just wanted peace between our folks."

"There cannot be peace between us, not after what the humans did to us - not after what you did to us."

"But I didn't do anything! You kidnapped me from Earth and dragged me into this thing. I never asked to be brought to Cybertron where you experimented on me."

"It was your decision to take the Allspark from the Autobots and to intervene in our war."

I ... I didn't know what to say. He was right. I didn't need to take the Allspark. But what would have happened then: He would have used it to destroy the Earth.

"It was your war that caused the downfall of your species."

"Oh, was it us? Did you have a closer look around in the Belt where you picked us up?"

I strongly thought about what he could mean. There was nothing. What should I have seen?

"Go" he commands. "And then tell me once again that it's not your fault."

I nod confused and disconnect.

Still confused what I should have seen in the Belt I'm back in the hall. I was there. I analyzed data about the Belt. What else shall I find there?

I go into our office. Carla for once already left work. I approach my computer and open all data sets I can find about the Belt. It would be easier if I knew what to look for. At least, because the Cons are safely deposited in the scrap hall I have no thoughts about accessing the data wirelessly. I load them down onto my inner system and start to analyze them with the unified power of my two halves.

As before I start with the different radiations I have data for, but this time it's even harder to see anything. The Belt is huge and the data cover huge areas over long time spans, but when I try to see everything at once the single data points are too small to be seen. I boost them until the reflection of sun light blinds me. Infrared, ultra-violet. Shall I look again at the radioactive radiation which helped me find the Cons? Again I don't see anything, the points are too small or the time frame is wrong. I jump to the point where Megatron is still in the Belt and then boost the measured values to see the dots. Stars are glowing in the Belt as expected.

Wait a second, Megatron and his guys were located close to each other, but at this resolution I still see several points. Also Megatron is big and emits a lot of radiation. I boost the values even more and now I see hundreds of stars glowing in the Belt.

A shiver runs down my spine. Probably that means the Belt is full of Cybertronians. Most likely they're all Decepticons. Do they prepare to invade? Why are they there?

I look at the time line, turn time backwards. The point I associate with Megatron leaves the Belt and the measurements don't reach far enough to say where they go, or better to say where they came from. Shortly before at the point where they entered the Belt I see something bright lighten up. That was probably me. They flew to the Belt to track my energy signature. I see myself as a small dot arriving the Belt backwards.

I turn back time further. Sometimes some dots enter or leave the Belt, but most of them don't move. Strangely they all seem to take similar routes when leaving the Belt, especially two vertex points leap to my eye. What are these? Hm, looks like Mars and Ceres.

I get an uneasy feeling. I bring the data to the beginning of the measured time frame, roughly put in the route as a line where I flew in from Cybertron, then I let everything run like a movie.

Dots - Cybertronians - arrive. Fly into the Belt, roughly in the area of my route. Move a bit. Suddenly they lie still. More dots coming. More and more points pile up in the area where I would sooner or later enter the Belt, then they all lie still at the same time, only moving slowly along with the asteroids. That's it. The Decepticons gathered here to wait for my arrival and to catch me before I reach Earth. They spread, because they didn't know my exact course and speed. I'm too small to be found in space.

But there's more. Some of the still dots start to move again. They move to Ceres. And from there further to Mars. I think about the scrap hall and suddenly I see clear.

With a shock I lean backwards and have to let the thought sink. Is it possible? Am I sure that I found the correct solution? I check everything again. No, it's clear.

I found out how the Cybertronian technology came to Mars. The self-destructing five-time encryption, the Eps-drive, the sensors of the medi-scans. They are all from us. And they are all here because of me.

I cannot believe it and press my palms onto my eyes so I don't need to see the devices in the office anymore. I think back to the simulation I showed to Lopez, how the pirates stole the box from the passenger ship. He knew it all the time, didn't he? How he declined the parts I offered to him. How he helped me to get the job in this "research facility", so I could see it for myself.

I imagine how he says: "You said you could do my job. Do you still think so?"

Totally down in the dumps I appear the next day at my work to help the humans to steal technologies from the Cybertronians. Everything is pointless. Megatron was right: The humans live, the Cybertronians die and everything is my fault. No idea what I should do now. Maybe I just continue to travel to Earth and forget all about this.

Why did Megatron point this out anyway? Probably he wanted to scare me that the humans will experiment on me, so I will crawl back to him as he said. But with satisfaction I can claim that he was wrong and I already passed this stage successfully. Well, I hope the return of my powers doesn't go around. Carla and Mark at least didn't say anything and they probably would out of scientific curiosity.

Carla asks me if everything is alright.

"Is it true that all the parts in the scrap hall, all your technologies you find in the Belt, where you saw them out of Cybertronians and bring them over Ceres to Mars?"

"That's what I told you?" She blushes and retracts her head into the collar of her smock. "Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I'm sorry."

"Imagine humans gather I-don't-know, in a valley or something, wait, starve and die and then you find their residues in the hands of aliens, who cut them up and examine them. How would you like that?"

Carla hides her red face. "I ... Probably that's not what you want to hear, but I would like that they are interested in us and that they only take the dead ones. May... Maybe you ask someone else."

I sigh. She's totally a scientist.

While we stay in this awkward silence, Mark comes in.

"Did you also get this message? The alien ship Seldra brought here landed on Mars."

We check our inboxes. Rage landed somewhere far away in the desert of Mars - in a storm, where they lost sight to him. I wonder what's to worry about this, of course he does. Oh, wait, the humans don't know this.

Mark continues: "It puzzles me how this could happen. There is no crew on board. They write it started to move before they could put a foot into it."

I understand this very well. The technology of the new Cybertronian space ship generation is probably the only thing humans don't have in any way. Of course I don't tell them.

I explain: "Don't you understand: It's an intelligent space ship, like the other Cybertronians you take apart. It seems he prefers to be on the ground."

"That doesn't make any sense. How did it pass our orbital cannons?" Mark asks. "I find this disturbing."

From my point of view he is just smarter than they expect from a machine. "He doesn't want to be experimented on. I can understand this very well. The best thing is you stay away from him. I will write an answer to this message."

They only look at me not comprehending. I still have a long way to go to explain the emotionalism of machines to them.

I stepped into another lab, or better to say it was more of a factory for the Decepticons. The place gave me the creeps. In glass bowls and tubes biological things in all colors and shapes swam around - I recognized an oversized heart and a thing that reminded me of a large intestine that was too long - I admit I wasn't good in human anatomy.

A Con with the lower body of a snake crawled off his frame with scraping and scratching noises of metal on metal. His upper body was closely humanoid, but he had four arms. He reminded me of a jinn. Beside he was averse to do anything for me.

"It's you again" he greeted me. "I don't have anything for you."

"Please, I'm hungry. You must have anything you don't need anymore." Maybe I could've threated him with telling Megatron to force him to give me anything. But I picked the submissive, diplomatic solution. That worked well until now. He was bitching every time, but gave me something in the end.

He mumbled something and creped through the room, passing by containers, shelves and the boxes and buckets stacked in the corner. Curiously I looked at the objects in the jars.

"Are they by any chance human?"

"Why would we need your kind for that?"

"Well, we also used Megatron ..."

"Shh!" he silenced me and lifted two digits of a servo in front of his intake.

I startled, because he fizzled exactly like a snake.

"We don't talk about that."

He fished an arm-long pink worm with a rough surface out of a bucket and a mix between blood and other body fluids ran down from it. I felt sick.

He splashed it into my arms. Was this eatable anyway?

I asked: "What's that?"

"Your food. And remember this time to bring me your residues."

I nodded and left the room while I breathed through the mouth so I didn't have to smell it. In the next room there was a barrel where the Con sterilized his utensils with high temperatures, there I through in the thing and abused the device as steamer. Then I swallowed the thing bit by bit. It didn't taste so bad, I just mustn't think about where it came from.


	24. Attack 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra fights Lockdown.

I'm busy with my work when a priority message reaches me. An alien space ship comes close, one from outside, so it's not Rage. I don't know if this shall worry me when all Decepticons are dead and scattered around the Belt or dismantled on Mars. Hey, what happened to the Autobots anyway? Maybe it's from them.

Shortly afterwards another message: The space ship shot some orbital cannons of Mars and takes course to my district. Hm, these are some aggressive contemporaries. Or maybe it was self-defense, who knows.

The sender orders me to hide. Of course. As if I would follow orders from anyone. Obviously the visitors know I'm here. Shall I wait until they dismantle the district? I just go out and ask what they want.

Carla shouts: "Wait, where are you going?" but I ignore her and leave the building faster than she can follow me in her slippers and her tight dress under her smock.

Outside I see the space ship as a threatening dark cloud through the glass of the dome. From all sides humans look at the object, some of them curious, most of them anxiously or they retreat into their homes.

"Seldra, what" Carla who comes out of the door behind me shouts when we hear a loud bang that cuts her off. The space ship shot a hole into the dome. Quickly the oxygen content in the air drops.

That's not as bad as it sounds. It happens from time to time that a meteorite damages a dome. If you are as vulnerable as Mars you are prepared for that case.

Emergency gates close before the tunnels that lead to other districts, to keep the air loss limited to this district. Carla escapes back into the building, like the other humans. Every entrance has an air lock. In every building there are oxygen tanks for cases of emergency.

I hold a hand in front of my mouth. Breathing becomes hard, but even worse is the sand storm that is produced by the engines of the space ship. How convenient. Nobody will see me. Too bad I can barely keep my eyes open.

While breathing becomes harder and harder - an old habit, traditionally I transform for fighting - I see a dark shape surrounded by clouds of red sand stepping through the hole into the district.

The thirty feet tall, humanoid shape comes with slow, confident steps towards me. In the thin air I hear his moving mechanics - a Cybertronian.

Soon he is close enough so I can recognize him just before I suffocate and transform.

Shit, it's Lockdown, the bounty hunter. I'm lost. I regret all of my decisions I made in the last half of an hour.

In his servo he holds my wanted poster on the fancy alien pad I already know from the photo.

Don't panic, I tell myself, I have to pull myself together. Where were I supposed to hide when my spark shines through the ether like a star? I will get any idea. The enemies are always bigger, stronger and have better weapons.

"Tz", Lockdown makes and looks at me full of contempt. "I thought that the humans lied to me."

"The people here have a complicated system about who is allowed to know what. It's not their fault if you ask the wrong people."

He raises the wanted poster. "I rather think they are stupid enough to protect a disgusting anomalousness like you."

"On the contrary they don't fall easily to such obvious tricks. Are you aware that my bounty is too high to be true? Nobody has such amount of money."

"At least your underdeveloped solar system doesn't."

"The bounty is a translation error." I point to the poster as if I would aim to a specific position in the first text. "That means quarter, not quintillion."

He's not impressed. "I get something else: Immunity."

"Immunity from what?"

He gives me a disapproving glance and says nothing, but his look speaks his contempt about me unworthy creature who knows nothing about the universe.

"Who is this creator anyway? Of the Cybertronians? Primus is the creator of the Cybertronians, isn't he?"

"You have no idea, have you?"

"No, then just explain it to me."

He laughs. Shortly, more of a "hm", because he has better things to do. I'm insulted.

Then he continues: "You're lucky that he wants you alive. Surrender and I spare you from great suffering."

"I never give up. When you shoot at me one time I die, so what will you do? I on the other side don't need to hold back." We didn't even start to fight yet. It's too early to give up.

"I know the stories about you. Your ridiculous weapons. Your provocativeness. Your countless defeats in the arena."

"53."

There is a short silence. I see something like surprise about that I dared to correct him.

"Tz. The stories didn't understate. You are really annoying. You have no chance to escape me."

"Big words from someone who considers 53 as uncountable. Did you actually inform yourself about me for more than a minute? One look into the stats of the arena would have told you." He has no idea HOW annoying I can be.

I see how he grabs the poster tighter. He just lost a bit of his self-control.

"You don't know what you are committing to. This is your last chance. Give up or suffer the consequences."

I silence for a moment and close my eyes. Then I open them: "I can defeat you."

"Very well. You asked for it."

Slowly he grows a weapon from his arm. In this moment I lift my arm and shoot at him. The bullet hits his chest plate with a quiet pling noise.

Surprised he stops. "Is that all you've got?"

"Wait until I warmed up."

He retracts the weapon and grows another, smaller one. Aims at me.

In the moment shortly before he shoots I light my laser pointer into his optical sensors and jump aside. He shoots a net that misses me. Aha. Ridiculous.

I run in a spiral closer to him. He aims again.

The net hits a street lamp that suddenly appears between the sand clouds.

This gets too dangerous for my taste and I retreat, hide in the raised sand. Maybe he can't see me, but I can't see him either. I wish my Cavecons were here to see for me. But it's too dangerous for them.

In the sand clouds I hit the wall of a house and decide for the tick strategy. I climb up.

When I see his silhouette in the dust, I jump to him, aim at his neck with the tip of my tail.

He spots me. Dodges. I hit the ground where he shoots at me and a net made from steel ropes covers me he puts his foot on.

I flounce, try to get free, but I have no orientation and I don't even find the opening of the net. Weights seem to keep it on the ground.

Lockdown draws the net together around me and lifts me up inside of it to the front of his face. He looks at me with pity. "You are a shame for our species."

"Too bad I inherited the trait to lose all the time also from your species."

"Shut up."

In the net he throws me over his shoulder like a sack. My tail sneaks through a hole in the net up to his neck.

Then I retreated my tail.

Lockdown brought me on aboard of his ship.

Lockdown's ship was huge - at least from my point of view - dim, creepy, chaotic. Everything was made from metal. My machine half nearly felt like home.

Lockdown grabbed my neck, skillfully unwrapped me from the net and put me into a cage that hung over the corridor. I saw other biological beings in the other cages and transformed into human mode.

He looked around. Through the corridors some sphere-shaped drones rolled who looked for intruders with their laser sensors.

Lockdown called to another Cybertronian aboard: "Cledsniff, did you exchange the lasers of the sphere drones? They were green before."

"No, that's another working mode. I didn't knew it beforehand either."

"Why are you tinkering with the drones in my absence?"

Lockdown threw me a glance.

I swallowed. "Why are you looking at me? I didn't do anything. I'm just hanging around. Maybe some humans sneaked onto your ship and tinkered with them. You should really build in some windows."

Lockdown rolled with his optical sensors: "Cledsniff, fix the drones." He looked at me. "And then shut her up."

"If I give you a pain in the cables there is a good way to get rid of me. I don't want to be here as well, you know?"

Cledsniff brought some kind of muzzle. Lockdown opened the door of my cage, grabbed my neck and quickly forced the muzzle on me before he threw me back and slammed the door.

I struggled with the thing, but I couldn't get rid of it. Now I could still annoy him wirelessly, but that was much easier to filter out.

"Of all Decepticons I've ever met you are the most childish one."

When I'm done with you you will wish I was one, that there was a Megatron somewhere out there who had me under control. I just looked at him angrily.

Lockdown turned to his crew. "Start the dark matter drive."

His crew members started to move. I heard them working somewhere. That would become less entertaining.

I heard how the engines ran up. Above in the back part of the ship I saw three giant spheres of dark matter flying around. I had never seen something like this before. Fascinating.

Soon afterwards we left Mars and found ourselves somewhere in the far empty space. How exactly or how fast we were I couldn't tell. I got bored.

Soon Cledsniff came to bring the prisoners dinner. Or lunch. Or the only meal in an undefined time frame that made more sense in space than "day".

With some kind of pitchfork he pushed me back to the bars, opened the door and took off my muzzle.

When he was back outside and in safety he gave me my meal. A plate full of green stodge. With screws in it. Di-gus-ting.

"What's that?"

"There are all nutrients in it to keep you alive for the duration of our flight."

"Compared to this Cybertron is a culinary paradise."

He moaned. "Shut up and eat. We can leave the muzzle on and feed you with a tube if you prefer."

I massaged my pained jaw and decided to eat on my own. The taste wasn't that bad, but the consistency, so lumpy and slimy, terrible.

At one point Lockdown stepped to my cage. "Are you ready to meet your creator?"

Which one? I was still half human. I shook my head.

He turned around. "Prepare for landing."

Cledsniff laughed: "Shall we bind a bow around Conmother?"

"Come here and I bind you to a bow."

Lockdown shouted: "Quiet!"

The crew pressed buttons on their control consoles. The sensors reported a drop of the oxygen level.

Lockdown went down the corridor and stared on one of the screens. Mistrusting. Then he turned to me. "Conmother. What did you do?"

I looked at him not comprehending.

He took me out of my cage and dragged me at my neck to one of the screens, keeping me in sight all the time in case I would do anything.

Then he spoke with a calm voice when he tried to keep his self-control: "That's the planet where we are going to land."

It was a naked planet, nothing more than a rock, far away from its star. No idea what Lockdown wanted to do there. Probably that was just a meeting point. Hm, somehow this one looked familiar. But maybe it only looked so common that I was wrong.

"While landing we analyze the atmosphere to adapt our ship. Here you see the measurements. But they don't show the values of this planet, but from Mars. That means that we are still on Mars."

He threw me to the ground and pointed his weapon to me. "So I ask you: What did you do?"

I laughed unashamed. Angrily he shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's of upmost importance for me that Lockdown gets a badass entrance. I just reread the scene to check on that: Lockdown shoots a whole into the dome and slowly steps in surrounded by dust cloud. Yeah, I think that suffices.


	25. Attack 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra seals Lockdown's fate and battles Rage.

Cybertron - Lockdown as me stood in front of Megatron and had just confronted him. Megatron grabbed him, threw him through the air in a high curve - mostly I had screamed like a little girl, but Lockdown had a strong mind, stabilized his flight path and landed with a cool somersault in the arena. I felt bad.

Three Cons stepped towards him.

"Why are you not coming here by yourself and face me, Conmother?" Lockdown/me shouted to the air. "You are scared. You should be."

He waved aggressively about and bravely faced his opponents. But with my body and my weapons even he had no chance and took hits until he laid still and humbled on the ground.

A sunny day on Earth, the area was full of humans in running clothes splattered with mud. Lockdown - as human - sat at the top end of a tube where he could see muddy water with ice cubes in it at the bottom end.

"At three" a man behind him shouted. "One, two ..."

"I'm not playing your game anymore, you hear me, Conmother?"

"Three." I broke the realism and the man gave Lockdown a kick so he slided down and dove into the ice water. Lockdown barked, but the perception was real. He tried to get out, but the pool was covered with a grid. He needed to swim ahead before he could get out at the other end. Where he started out of protest to beat up the next passer-by.

It was night in a forest, far away from civilization. Lockdown - again a human - was tired and pissed. On top it also started to rain. Soaked wet he retracted into an improvised hut where he found some cover and curled up freezing.

"Conmother!" he shouted again and again. He shivered from the cold. I left him there all night long.

"Shit, he noticed it. The button does something different depending on where the ship is. Thanks, you can stop sending me data about his ship." My lip is shivering. I try to focus and to not think about what makes me sad.

The data transmission of the Cavecons stops.

"Wait for me. I need a while."

I stand strained beside the motionless body of Lockdown. My attention is focused on the simulations. I sigh. The people around me get impatient.

"How much longer does this take?"

I'm busy and let them wait for the answer just because. "I'm throwing him into simulations for 3 weeks. His mind is strong."

I blink constantly and rub my eyes.

Carla states: "The machines can process much more data in the same time. In the simulations time runs much faster."

I look at her and think back to Lopez: "That works with humans, too."

I turn my focus back to the simulations. Finally I sigh: "He's in it for a month now. I don't manage it to break him."

I'm disappointed, but I pull myself together. I'm damn tired. I cannot kill him and plan B also doesn't work. In my opinion this counts as a draw.

"I'm letting him out, now."

I ignore the disapproval of the people around me.

Lockdown awakes in the scrap hall where hills out of body parts of his species lie around and he stares at me. I think he knows that this is reality. He tries to get up, but he cannot do more than a slightly flounce.

I explain to him with a calm voice: "While you were in the simulation we removed most of your systems. Your career as bounty hunter is over. You now belong to the humans." He is nothing more but a speaking torso, incapable of doing anything else.

"You will regret this. I will find a way out."

"You have no idea how many people want to see me dead. Get in line."

I don't have enough imagination to come up with something worse than bringing me to this creator. Besides, I don't see how he would escape. I don't care for what he says.

I nod to the researchers. "They will take care that you don't get out."

I rub my tired eyes and leave Lockdown. "Carla, I'm done with working for today. I will take care of the ship tomorrow. Can you please ensure that no one makes a step into it? It's full of traps and strange creatures, too dangerous."

She nods. "I will write a mail to everyone. Breath helmets are beside the entrance."

I inform the Cavecons about my plan - they will wait - and I go home, then my day is over.

In the next morning I instantly make my way to Lockdown's ship. Over night they started to patch up the hole in the dome, so I go into the research center to the delivery entrance and through the air lock to the outside, where I transform.

Outside there is still a heavy storm blowing from the engines of the space ship, which I see as a dark shadow above me in the sand clouds. While the winds throw me around I fly up to the ship.

Fascinating. The ship is open to every side. No idea how the biological prisoners inside can breath. I land inside.

The ship is now harmless except for the few traps. Some Cavecons switched off the crew members of Lockdown. Others scouted the ship, especially the controls for me and deactivated the drones.

"Where is he?" I ask and get some coordinates as an answer.

I find Fuzzy in a corridor, where his parts are spread far. I feel like crying. My poor baby. I hope I can fix this.

I collect all parts I can find and put them on the ground roughly where they belong. The explosion trap ripped the parts apart and damaged them, so I can not just put them together.

I give the thing a shock of Energon. Nearly magically small blue lightnings jump from one part to another, who attract each other like magnets, join each other and regenerate.

Fuzzy stands in front of me wondering and orientates himself. Happily I hug him. For a second he accepts it before he flounces out of my arms.

"I'm so glad you're back."

He says nothing and just receives updates from the others. While on a side note they mention a huge robot that looks through the openings into the ship.

I look up and see into the giant optical sensors of Rage. He retreats.

"Was he watching all the time??" I send panicking not considering that he hears it as well on this distance. Probably he saw how I revived Fuzzy.

A thought about the storm outside sparks in my mind. Why did I not think that Rage could've hided in it? I know that's how he hides. I just assumed it would be caused by the engines of Lockdown's ship without questioning it.

Missy answers: "We thought he was one of us." Okay, in some way that's correct. But I don't belong to them.

Rage's giant servo makes it's way through the opening into the space ship. The ground jumps and throws everything around.

"Get out, get yourself in safety" I send to the Cavecons, who quickly run to their drones which they stole from the humans to get to the ship.

When I imagine how Rage crushes them I shiver. I run to face him and to distract him from the Cavecons and expose my jet engines.

Outside a gust of wind grabs me and throws me around.

Rage notes that I left the ship and let's the half ripped ship fall to the ground.

"Are you alright??" I send into the area. "Answer me when you reached the ground undamaged."

Wait for it, Rage, I kick your after burner.

But this is easier thought then done. While my normal flight abilities are really lousy, in this storm I'm completely out of control. I manage roughly to dodge Rage's servo who tries to grab me. I need more stability.

I try to land on the ground, but the wind does with me what it wants and pulls me off the ground. I find no hold in the sand. On this ground I cannot even consider to dodge in time.

I soar again, try to spot his head in the sand clouds.

Again he tries to grab me - I dodge too late, he scrapes my feet and I spin through the air. Then I turn around and grab the back of his servo.

That's also not a good idea. Now he tries to pick me with the other servo. I accelerate to his head and fly over his shoulder. From there I aim at his neck. In the last moment he turns around and I land on the front side of his neck, where I stick.

Before he grabs me I quickly climb around his neck.

I reach the back side, make contact with his inner system, switch it off. It seems to take a while until it shows effect, because still his servo moves to me, ready to grab. I check the system just to be sure - yes, the control unit is really off.

Then the realization hits me: Rage has an additional biological brain. I only switched off his machine brain. His servo grabs me and pulls me off his neck before I can fix my mistake.

Shit. I fight his grip, but he's too strong, I could fight a mountain as well.

What's he intending now?

The storm calms down. I see the dome of the district appearing before us.

The humans there who still run around with breath helmets until the oxygen level in the district returns to be human-friendly look up to us.

"Get away!" I send to the Cavecons as well as to the humans. I still don't know what he's up to.

With his mighty fist Rage beats a hole into the dome. The humans run away in panic to dodge the falling shards.

The free servo grabs through the hole into the district. I recognize the building it moves to as the research center. Oh well.

He rips a hole into the wall exactly where the scrap hall is.

He pulls his arm completely out of the district. Then I make a fast trip through the hole into the district and into the scrap hall.

Rage moves me to Megatron's lifeless body and holds me before it.

I think I understand he wants me to revive them as I did with Fuzzy.

"Nah" I send.

The servo grips tighter. Presses me, squeezes me, bends the metal of my case into my human flesh that screams in pain, but in my machine mode I rarely notice it.

"No! You cannot force me."

He hedges me in his grip. His thumb moves to my neck pushes my head forward. I feel how the nerves in the vertebrae of my neck want to tear apart.

Then another survival instinct awakes in me which I didn't knew before. Without me deciding this I produce a shock of Energon which I just try to regulate.

Megatron awakes. But that's not enough.

Rage holds me to Starscream and pushes again.

One after the other I give a shock of Energon, all four of them. They look around disoriented.

I hear how Megatron gives the order to fly off, then Rage moves me further, out of the scrap hall and to another building.

It's the hospital. Before someone can have a closer look at me I transform and Rage in an act of mercy passes me into the arms of the doctors.

My body pains, my flesh burns, my neck aches. I can barely stand upright and are brought inside, shortly after I notice that the Cons with Rage leave the planet.

Don't worry, I just think when I see people watching the sky in fear. I just gave them energy for three days.


	26. Martial Law 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Decepticons return.

... but yet after two days they return with a new plan.

To Carla and the others whose business it is I explain that all Cybertronians are able to transfer energy to each other. There is absolutely nothing special about what I did. Of course Rage rather uses my energy over his own if he has the choice.

It takes me some effort to conciliate the doctors and to keep them away from me as far as possible. The medi-scan must be enough to see that I'm fine. Yes, I have some bruises and some muscle pain in the neck, but that's it.

At the next day my visitors find me standing at the window. Fascinated I watch how a few drones repair the hole in the dome with a new layer of glass. Although I'm not sure if it's indeed glass or some kind of plastic.

When a well-known, male voice greets me I turn around. It's Lopez, like everyone else now wearing an oxygen tank on his back. I don't know what to say.

Oh, I just come up with something fitting. I grin. "Did you came to spank me?"

"It seems like someone already did."

I cannot deny.

"I had a discussion with Rachel." Ha, that's funny. I need to tell Rage next time. "It's not that bad, I've got bones made of steel. It just hurts a bit."

"I heard that you brought an Alien spaceship to Mars."

"That's totally not true. There were two."

"And that you can transform again, did transform."

"That was self-defense. All three times."

I know what he is thinking. They manumitted me, because they thought I was useless without my machine abilities. Maybe he suspects that I somehow tricked them. But now it's too late, I've got all documents that identify me as a human. They cannot do anything about that.

"You revived four machine beings, is that correct?"

"I want to state for the protocol that I was forced to do that and I resisted as long as I could and neither the defense structures of Mars nor anyone in the district did anything about that."

Lopez sighs. "The Donnager lies at anchor in the orbit of Mars. Because of your simulation back then I advised against attacking or following them. What will they do now?"

I stay silent. Secretly I congratulate him to the decision to not sacrifice the Donnager.

"No idea."

I search through my memory, but I only remember times when Megatron had the full force of the Decepticons behind him. What could he do with four followers far away from his home world?

I'm discussing my examination plan with a doctor - my plan states no, just no, that is totally not necessary - when power goes off. It turns half dark and all screens go dark or turn back to the wall they were before. That's not that bad. Thanks to the modern medicine the few patients who need to stay at the hospital are fine even without electricity. Problems will only show up in a few days when air processing and temperature regulation don't work again until then. Immediately the emergency power in the hospital turns on.

A look through the window tells me that it's dark in the whole district.

Then a loud bang tangs from the dome. In a strain of gallows humor I imagine how the people moan: "Not again ..." when the dome is damaged for the third time this week. The humans with their little problems. For me this is one of the worst weeks of my life.

The four Decepticons are back and land in the middle of the district. Starscream still has his EMP cannon exposed. Why did I not notice that it was used? Because the emergency power in the hospital works I assume he spared this building, probably because of me. Then it's of no use to play dead. They know I'm here.

The squares outside are empty. Panicking the last humans with their breathing helmets retreat into the buildings.

"I am Megatron. Conmother, come here!", Megatron shouts into the direction of the hospital.

"Coming" I'm sending. Megatron is not known for his patience.

At the windows of the hospital the staff and some of the other patients are standing. All of them look out in fear.

At the door one of the male nurses stops me: "You shouldn't go out now."

"But they're calling me."

He looks at me confused. Oh, he doesn't see a connection between me and Megatron's order. The humans only know me as "Se'eldra Sadr'khor".

I put on one of the breathing helmets from the cupboard beside the door, make sure that it's closed tight and step out.

They are weak. I'm on the other hand are full of energy. With the head high up to show that I have no fear I face them.

The four are standing there as I remember them. Megatron, grey and square-edged. The biggest one of them with his thirty feet. Starscream, extraordinary colorful with his white, blue and red painting and the folded wings of his jet mode on his back. He's the only one whose chassis has a visible slit left, where the humans have tried to saw him open. The energon was not enough to repair this damage completely. Shockwave, the creepy guy with a single, red optical sensor at the front of his head instead of a face. Soundwave - I recognize the long attachments of a satellite that he last used as a disguise.

Thanks to the energon shock now they're all free of rust.

Interested they watch me coming. I feel ridiculous with the breathing helmet.

"Away with that" Megatron commands Starscream, who demonstratively points his EMP cannon upwards - away from me - and retracts it. I think twice if I want to mess with them now.

I want to say something annoying, but I don't feel like it.

"We should really shoot her dead" Shockwave throws in. "Before she starts messing around." He, too, points his gun upwards. "As you decide." As if Megatron has said anything.

I feared this moment where I stand in front of Megatron after everything I did. Now when the moment is there it's not that bad.

"Well" Megatron says after a while. "Looks like the final fight between our species has come. I wonder on which side you will stand."

I look at him not comprehending. "What are you talking about? It's neither the end nor a battle. I came to talk."

"Your human friends disagree."

He nods to a place behind me.

I turn around. Some armed humans in fighting suits come out of some buildings - the soldiers that live in this district. With their small, ridiculous weapons, prepared to fight for their freedom.

"You were the one who always discussed with me, who always engaged for the humans, who lived in the illusion there could be peace between us" Megatron reminds me. "Now your chance has come. Explain to the humans to stop their rebellion. If they open fire there will be consequences."

Oh Primus, I'm not qualified for this, what shall I do? I could call the Cavecons to disarm the soldiers. But I don't want Megatron to see them and to know that I can use the power of the Allspark to create new life. Bad enough if he understood that I can recharge them.

Lopez can probably help. He has a high rank and knows how to talk to them. Too bad I'm not reaching him - his pad is offline. Where could he be?

"Starscream switched off everything. Except for you." Soundwave read my communication. He says the last part with a threatening undertone.

"Conmother, you know that I never raised my servo first in a fight?" That's Megatron again. "Neither on Cybertron, nor on Earth, it was always some of my enemies who fired the first bullet. I have the right to wipe out humanity for what they did. But I only do it to protect us."

Without a plan I run towards the group that gathers and points their weapons to the Decepticons.

"Don't shoot!" I shout. "They won't harm you."

"Out of the way" is the answer, but I keep standing where I am.

They run asunder, where I don't stand in their way anymore and point their guns to Megatron.

"Fire!"

Then they look at their weapons in surprise.

These also weren't spared by the EMP. Too bad when all modern devices are based on micro chips.

Megatron moves suspiciously slowly towards them. The soldiers flinch. He looks a soldier who stands at the front deep into her eyes.

"Do you have anything to say to me, you worm?"

"Freedom for Mars."

She takes out a dated handgun and fires several times. The bullets hit him with quiet pling noises.

"Shockwave" Megatron says like a command.

Shockwave points his cannon to the woman.

But I'm already there and place myself before her.

"Stop that, it brings nothing" I hiss to the woman and place myself with outspread arms and back to her in front of her.

Shockwave commands: "Out of my way."

"No." I turn to Megatron. "They didn't do anything. We can still settle this peacefully."

But suddenly an arm grabs me around my neck and pulls me back.

"Stand still!", the woman shouts.

I feel the cold metal of her gun at my temple. Oh no. She has seen that the Decepticons don't fire at me and now she thinks I'm important to them. She will be disappointed.

The Cons look to us with boredom.

"I just want you to leave."

"No."

The woman waves with the gun at my head. I try to pull myself together.

"Leave Mars or I shoot her dead."

"Go ahead." Shockwave turns away with disinterest.

Megatron laughs. "That's how they thank you for engaging for them."

I can sense how the woman stands there bewildered and doesn't know what to do. It seems as if they don't care if I live or die, but the truth is they know this little bullet won't kill me.

"Take the weapon down" I say calmly. "Everything will be alright."

But I cannot hold back a grin and the woman drags me closer to her in anger and strains herself.

I expose my tail and put her to sleep. I don't want a bruise at my temple.

Clumsily I grab her weapon arm, but I cannot hold her up with that alone and she hits the ground harder than I intended. Whoops. That would give a strong headache, but she will survive. Besides, the other soldiers flinch when the gun points into their direction. Maybe they are scared because of my new limb.

Then a projectile from Shockwave's cannon hits her body and shreds a hole into her chest.

Startled I stare on it. Then I complain to Shockwave: "That was totally unnecessary!"

"This was necessary to make our point clear."

Angrily I form fists. She was already unconscious. He didn't need to do that.

Megatron laughs. "Well, if you are still ready to engage for the humans you may try your luck next time."

He turns to his side kicks: "Spread out. Do what I told you."

This is not what I expected. "You are not going to bring me back to Cybertron?"

"Cybertron was already half decayed back then when you left it." He nods to the district. "No, I decided that we start to rebuild Cybertron with the resources of this planet."

Starscream, Soundwave and Shockwave leave the place in different directions. Soundwave places himself on the highest building in the district. Shockwave moves to the shut tunnel entrance. Starscream starts to drive the humans with threats out of their buildings and makes them gather.

I'm shocked. However, after the soldiers decided that they couldn't do anything this happens surprisingly peacefully. They retreat and let Starscream drive them to the others. Probably they now make up something else.

"All these years humans ruled over the machines. Now we rule over them as it should be."

I ask: "What do you want from me?"

"I want that you continue doing what you do. Every follower does their task. You will make sure that the humans do theirs. Keep the peace until we depart. I don't care if you do it for the humans or for us. Will you take the duty to take care for the humans?"

"Yes."

I answer quickly, nearly too quickly. Maybe that makes him suspicious. I know that they barely have energy left and everything will be alright when I temporize. One day, that's all we need to endure.

"Really? Or will you bugger off again?"

Even if I could overcome the gravity of Mars, where should I go? Probably Rage would bring me back. Where is he anyway? Probably they parked him outside out of mercy.

"Really. Pinky promise."

He doesn't react to my hand. He expects me to keep my word. Or not.

"You don't make any nonsense, you understood?"

"You know me."

I make it sound as a yes, but I mean it as I say it.


	27. Martial Law 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra tries to tell Lopez how Cybertronians work. Starscream ignores her orders. Megatron finds porn of himself.

Starscream drove the people out of their homes onto the squares. I'm worried that he hurts someone. Soundwave enabled the communication within the district and Starscream starts to delegate tasks and to send plans to the pads.

Finally Lopez appeared. When I move towards him, he steps out of the group to me.

"Oh" I say with a look at the humans behind him. "You have been chosen to talk to me. Like in good old times."

Among the humans there are also the soldiers. They don't move. Some of them look at me with distrust. The others, who begin to move, look back wondering.

I whisper to Lopez: "Do the soldiers listen to you? Talk to them. Tell them they shall follow their commands or the Cons kill them."

"We rather die trying to free Mars than to live in slavery."

How stubborn. They already lost. "I gave the Cons energy for three days. Tomorrow before noon it's over."

"Is that true?" Lopez makes sure.

"Yes."

He thinks. Then he nods and goes to the soldiers. After that they start to move to follow the orders on their pads.

I'm alone with Lopez. Time for the business stuff.

"What did you talk about with the robots?" he wants to know.

Only now I realize they talked in the Cybertronian language to me, like in recent days. Only when they address humans they speak the human language.

I stay silent and try to remember what Lopez might have heard and what not. He wasn't present, but maybe the others told him something. Then I also need to consider if what the Cons talked about is appropriate for humans to know.

"What did he tell you?" he broaches the subject again when I don't respond. "I would like to know if you are still on our side. How's your relation to the robots?"

"It's complicated. They hate me, but they need me."

"What for?"

"Megatron says he doesn't talk to slimy, organic life forms that crawl through the dust." I start to giggle. "You know what's funny? Martians actually live in the ground."

I laugh heavily. Lopez just rolls his eyes. What else is left for me to do in this situation?

When I caught myself I answer: "They want that I take care for the humans. Cybertronians don't know what humans need. If you like, you can hear around, what the humans need when I'm not present. They ... ehm ... don't seem to trust me."

Lopez takes out his pad. On the screen orders appear.

I ask saucily: "What do you want to tell your wife?"

"I need to inform some people about what happens here. Can you make a connection out of the district?"

"No, everything is infiltrated. Everything. There are no private messages anymore."

"You say even if I send a message to someone within the district one of them will also read it?"

"Well" I say. "If you connect everything wirelessly you don't need to wonder when the Cybertronians - the Decepticons - intercept everything."

Lopez notes: "Our systems are encrypted with state of the art algorithms."

I sigh: "Look, we are living machines. We are born with this technology. That's as if you would encrypt something by speaking in a dialect. That's a joke to us."

"How shall that be possible? We have mathematical models that state that you would need the computation power of the whole universe to crack our encryption in that time frame."

"I'm sure you would have a similar model for dialects if you were unable to understand language."

He screws his face in a painful friendliness as if he would explain something to a stubborn child. "Mathematics is a language. We cannot build mathematical models without understanding language."

"Look at this."

It's too early to give up and I crouch down to draw an ugly wave-like line into the dust on the ground.

"Imagine this was sound, okay? If you see it here like this, it makes no sense. But when you hear the sounds as spoken language, you understand it. If you see your encrypted data as strange strings before you, they make no sense for me either, but as data stream in a wire or sent through the air I understand it as machine language and the meaning is clear."

"They can still not work around an encryption without the needed key."

I get angry. "Okay, you know what. Look at your pad. I'll show you."

He tilts his head in suspicion.

"Look at it."

When he looks at it I wirelessly take control. This improves my mood. My play instinct awakens and in a quick sequence I display all his incoming and outgoing messages on the screen as well as his photos and videos.

"Oh, this all is very interesting."

I stop at a message of a sender unknown to me who says: "Lopez, the machine girl can be useful for Mars. Keep her in a good mood. Inform me about every conspicuous behavior so we can intervene and eliminate her if necessary."

Below that is his answer: "Yes, Sir."

My good mood is gone. I stare at him with anger.

He raises his hands in a conciliating way. "Wait. Here me out."

I grab the pad from his hands and smash it to the ground, so it breaks into two halves.

"I don't want to hear anything. I really tried to trust you, but ... but ..."

I'm so angry that I don't know what to say and run away. Again I engaged myself for the humans in front of Megatron and they betrayed me. I will remember this. He will regret this. At the next chance he will learn about the power of the Botmother.

I try to distract my thoughts and go to look what Starscream does with the humans. My idea is: Maybe Megatron chose me for this tasks, because he assumes that I dare to face Starscream if needed.

Starscream already divided the people into groups who work on their respective tasks. They want to build a new core from the wreckage of Lockdown's ship. A bunch of people prepares themselves to take the ship apart and is just equipped with tools in a chaotic way, by collecting them one by one in the scrap hall. Distrustfully they watch me approaching. Probably the story about my new limb got around.

"Work faster, you worms" Starscream pushes them. "Why does this take so long?"

"Starscream" I call. He turns around to me. "You could put some people to repair the dome."

"Do you want another roller coaster ride, Sparkling?"

I freeze when the memory hits me. Man, how I screamed out of fear back then. But I tell myself that I got thrown around so often since then that it doesn't bug me anymore. I pull myself together. He just thinks I want to mess with him again.

"I'm not saying anything against your plans. If they repair the dome, the district can be filled with oxygen. The humans are running out of air, hence soon they won't work at all."

Of course I'm exaggerating. They just have to leave all the time to fill up their oxygen tanks or replace them. "Besides, without the tanks they could carry more."

He hesitates. It makes a damn sense what I say, but he cannot simply agree with me, because he is too much Starscream. "I've got my orders. Talk to Megatron about that."

"I'm just talking to you about that."

"I don't care for what you say. Megatron neither if he's smart."

"My task is to take care for the well-being of the workers. Can't you put your protests aside until the work is done?"

Starscream laughs. "Look around in this world the humans built, where machines are working for them. They only get what they deserve."

Okay, as he want. I send a message to Megatron: "Starscream doesn't want to repair the dome which is needed for the well-being of the humans."

Silence. No one answers me. Starscream stares at me. Then Soundwave answers: "Megatron switched off his radio module. You need to tell him in person." He sends me the coordinates.

What, why does Megatron do such a thing?

I just want to go when Starscream steps in my way.

"Watch what you are saying to him. If you put it as if I wouldn't do my job, because you think you can kick out at me you're wrong. I'm his right-hand robot for so long your small mind cannot understand. I'm too important for him to fling me off. Contrary to you. But when I hear about that I will roast your intestines before you can cry one word of an apology."

"I think you are overreacting a bit. I apologized for the tea." I smile nervously.

"You cried like a wimp, that was terrific. But this time it won't help."

Yes, we have our friction points. I made a single mistake which he reminds me off in all eternity.

"Don't worry. I won't give you a cause."

Then I go on my way.

"Conmother."

I find Megatron in a building which I didn't know before. Behind the air lock I take off my breathing helmet to save oxygen. In the big hall where I am now parts of the hull of a space ship are produced, how the parts tell me that stand here in a neat row: plates, fins and similar parts.

Megatron stands in front of a huge screen where he watches any data in a quick sequence. When I come near, he zooms to some pictures and points to them.

"Are these ... me and Starscream in a human mating ritual?" he asks with disgust.

Oh shit, he found the research documents about me.

"The researchers wanted to know how Cybertronians reproduce. I didn't tell them the truth. I know, that you're not sharing that information with humans, so they cannot misuse it. But I had to tell them something, so I made up something what fits to the human imagination. I keep the secrets of the Cybertronian species." I speak too fast and way too much.

"You told them our battles were a mating ritual?"

"I had to tell them something."

"That's distorted. What's wrong with you?" He shakes his head in great disappointment.

"Do you want me to scotch this? Do you want me to tell them the truth?"

Theatrically I move my hands through the air like a curtain that opens, to show the vision I see in my imagination.

"Imagine people learn to grow their own technology in a lob, cute little protoforms in cages, who get sawn apart before they fire their first bullet. Or imagine they learn where our space ships of the new generation come from and they grow something like Rage" - no, that's not bad enough - "but with a processor in a biological body, how about that?"

That would be basically me over-sized and abnormal. For Decepticons there is hardly something worse than me.

"No."

I wait for him to say something else. "Megatron, you became so calm in your old days."

"Did you came here just to get on my cables?"

"Well, somehow yes."

I present my request about the dome as diplomatic as I can. Now he is annoyed by Starscream and sends a respective order.

I back away gratefully and submissive.


	28. Martial Law 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shockwave shoots the drones that are supposed to repair the dome. Seldra negotiates with Starscream who puts out a trap for her. Or two.

On my way back I hear some loud bangs. The humans look up terrified to the dome. Metal scraps rain down.

Quickly I realize what happened.

"Shockwave you tin head" I send into the ether. "That were drones to repair the dome, so the humans can BREATH, so the humans can WORK."

"Don't talk to me like that."

If I would stand before him, his tone and his size would probably intimidate me. But this way I only receive the bare text and need to fight down my anger. That's not the right way to achieve anything.

"Okay, I'm sorry" I give in. "Please don't do that again."

"Tell them to declare every drone activity to me if they don't want this to happen again."

Yeah? Does he really want that? We will see.

When I reach the humans who wait to get their tasks I ask around who is responsible for the drones. They look at me with distrust, want to know why I want to know this.

"That's my task. I settle this with the ... robots."

Soon I find another member of the group who already have their tools.

"The repair program starts automatically after a while when it got quiet around the scene of the accident" he explains to me.

I explain to him that he needs to ask Shockwave for permission so he won't shoot down the drones and give him a script with which he can contact Shockwave. For that I take out my pad, but send it with my radio module. The pad is only an alibi so ... the humans won't consider me even weirder than they already do. Actually the script just sends blindly into the ether and adds the receiver in Cybertronian letters to it. With this a Cybertronian can easier filter out the messages to them from the general noise when there is too much traffic and they ignore everything else.

Not long after I receive a message from Shockwave. "I didn't allow you to show the humans how they can annoy me."

"You said they should declare their drone activities to you. How else shall they do it?"

"By you."

"I have my own pile of tasks. Is he now allowed to inform you when the drones repair the dome? Or do you prefer to wait for the humans to suffocate and you can build the core on your own?" I wait for an answer.

The man looks at me wondering and I notice, that I stare into the air without moving.

Shockwave sends: "For once."

I let the man know, a little bit quieter: "Of course you can contact him for other things. You are free to share the script. Wait, let me show you how you can contact the other ones, only in case of an emergency if I'm not there and you need anything."

Soon they would know the true power of humans.

"That's nice and everything. But unfortunately I'm already busy here." He nods in the direction of Starscream, who stands outside beside Lockdown's ship and watches us suspiciously through the glass of the dome.

"Wait a second, I take care of that."

I want to radio to Starscream and hesitate. He still looks at me with a piercing stare. Maybe that's not a good idea. Anyway, he has already received a respective order, what else can happen.

"Starscream, would you please release this worker from his current task so he can repair the dome?"

He keeps looking at me. Tilts his head from one side to the other while he's thinking. "Why don't you come out? And we talk about that?"

Oh well, this smells like trouble. Does he want to let me suffocate outside? Unlikely. He should know that I don't need to breath when I transform.

While I wonder what he is up to I leave the dome through the air lock.

Outside at the ship people are in great agitation. They discuss, point to the ship, crowd together in fear of Starscream who doesn't even pay attention to them. He just waits for me.

"Well, the humans are overcharged with the alien ship" he states sarcastically. "Seems we lost two workers in the traps and one came to close to a biological prisoner. If you take care of the beings in the cages I let the worm go to his drones. How does that sound, Sparkling?"

"You've got a strange method to ask for help."

He smirks.

"Okay" I say. "I do that. Because I'm braver than you."

Instead of a comment Starscream makes an inviting servo movement.

After climbing to the entrance I carefully step into the ship, that now lies at the ground damaged and a bit tilted. Where are the Cavecons? Since my battle with Rage I didn't hear anything from them, so they follow the standard plan and hide. I don't dare to radio them to request plans of the ship to not give their presence away. So I can only rely on my memory to orientate myself in Lockdown's ship.

Behind me Starscream who takes care that I complete my task as agreed steps into the ship.

I give him a suspicious glance. "You are known for standing behind someone in times of distress."

He laughs again. "If you are scared you are free to run away."

But when I walk through the corridor it's Starscream who shows some discomfort. "By the way, what happened to the crew members?" Sporadic you see some humanoid Cybertronians, drones and cybernetic watch dogs lie around.

"I switched them off."

"They are too many. You never-ever did that. Who helped you?"

Now I laugh amused. "In those days on Cybertron I was nice to you with my annoying music." He can imagine the rest for himself.

"I will check on that. Woe betide you if that is one of your lies." He sends a request to Soundwave.

How ridiculous. Maybe in the research lab there are notes about the arrival of and research on Lockdown, but that's it.

"Oh, wait a second" I just note, "you never enjoyed my music. We have to catch up on this in good time."

"Anytime, little one. I wait. Just come here."

Soundwave who roughly scanned the ship gives me a map where the triggered traps and surviving prisoners they know about are marked. I remember where Fuzzy was ripped apart of a trap and it was the same corridor.

In this corridor I see one of the two dead workers lying on the ground. The look is horrific. He looks bloated and strangely distorted. An open trap door with two blood stained, jagged rolls tells me where to find the second one.

I stop and look at the corridor with increasing unease. Carefully I put one foot in front of the other. Probably there are more traps active. I cannot promise that I would have survived one of these traps. Maybe I could quickly fly away from the rolls, but the horrific look of the distorted worker I don't know what happened to scares me.

"Starscream, how about you simply use your EMP to deactivate the traps?"

"I already did that, you coward." He laughs. "I just wanted to see if you dare."

I feel humiliated. Damn. I should have seen this coming.

He laughs at me.

Without words I continue my way through the corridor.

Suddenly a mechanical-only trap door opens below me. I stumble and fall some inches, before I expose my jet engines and accelerate, but in this moment a brown matter falls down on me and drags me down.

While I still wear the breathing helmet I'm not in immediate danger. But as soon as I try to move my limbs the resistance of the mud becomes enormous. I cannot move. It is cold. Little critters crawl over me. I want to tell them to move away, but I cannot. I want to shew them away from me, but I cannot. That makes me angry. I can only feel and watch how they crawl around and do something to me. How dare they. I hear them talking about me. They call me NBE1. Damn them. I am Megatron!

I feel moisture on my limbs when the ice starts to melt. I fight against it and feel how it starts to crumble. I keep fighting, break the ice around me, wipe the small humans away from me. "I am Megatron!" I correct them.

I leave my platform. Before me I see the tunnel that leads to my freedom, but more human worms stand in my way, shoot at me with their ice cannons to push me back into captivity.

But I don't hate them. They are stupid and under-developed. I want to scare them so they will leave me alone. I just want to go home. I transform into a jet and accelerate over their heads into freedom.

Out of the mud. I transformed to bot mode and left the trap. Angrlyy I fly back above into the corridor, wipe off the mud from my helmet, transform back and look at Starscream with eyes that feel like they burn in anger.

He comments: "Lockdown is smart enough to not rely on electronics for this security installments."

I scream at him: "You clunker, you are running on Windows XP! That could have killed me, you know?"

He smirks. "Watch yourself. If would be too bad if you'd lost your fragile life by some stupid accident."

"Why you're not attacking me yourself if you want to see me dead? You coward!"

"If you weren't an important part of our plan I would. For now I hold back."

"I dare you. I show you a world of horror."

"We both know this would end with you down on you knees."

It burns inside of me. I want to beat him up. I want to rip him into pieces. I form fists and notice that I already exposed my tail ready to fight.

But I try to control myself. Is that really a good idea? Damn, if he just hadn't that EMP. I must not give him a reason to use it. What am I supposed to do?

Starscream suggests: "Run to Megatron. Go ahead. It's not my fault that you're so stupid and walk into some traps that have already been here when we arrived. You slept the last hours away and delayed our work. How would he like that?"

Is that so? I look onto my inner clock. Oh, it's nearly evening. Several hours passed. It didn't feel that long. Probably I spent the time in hibernation, nevertheless my oxygen tank is nearly empty.

"Wait for it, I will remember this. One day you'll pay for everything, Starscream."

He laughs again. "Yeah, right. I want to see that, Sparkling."

Angrily I wipe off the mud from me as much as I can. I feel strangely stiff and slow. When the mud falls off, it gets somehow better.

"Oh, by the way" Starscream continues. "Because you didn't answer I already released the man and ordered to continue the work here. Feel free to take care of the biological prisoners anyway, so you're at least useful for anything."

But first I go home to take a shower and to refuel my oxygen.


	29. Martial Law 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The porn pictures spread. Seldra takes care of the prisoners in the space ship. Lopez spends the night at Seldra's place. Shockwave shoots more drones.

The case already went around. After showering I see that I got a message from Mark on my pad. "Seldra, is everything alright?"

Because I didn't reply for a while he sent a second message. My jaw drops.

"That looks to me like one of those mating rituals you told me about. I'm just asking out of scientific curiosity, you don't need to answer if you're not comfortable with it. As a hybrid being are you participating in the reproduction? How long is the time span from mating until the youngsters hatch?"

And a third message: "Carla is also worried, but most of the time she is too busy and forgets to write."

Oh Primus, what did I do? I write to him: "No, I'm not mating with Starscream. We had a little disagreement, don't worry."

I make my way back to the direction of the ship. My task to do something about the biological prisoners is still open. On my way I write to Mark.

"Can you give me some sleep drug for the prisoners in the ship?"

He answers instantly: "Wait a second."

I go on and wait. One minute, two minutes, I'm nearly at the air lock. Then he writes: "My coworker says you should use Baklephan, that paralyzes them and leaves them conscious. I cannot leave from here now, please fetch it yourself." He sends me a description where to find it in his department and a number to identify it, also a formula to calculate the needed amount. "Would you please bring me the creatures afterwards for research purposes? Thanks!"

After closer consideration this doesn't seem to be a good idea anymore. Besides one of them could turn out to be the new scourge of humanity I cannot load it on my consciousness to give feeling - living - beings into the hands of science. Not again. But the alternative would be to kill them. It is out of question to set them free or to send them back home, wherever that might be.

When people ask me how I am, I say: "I'm fine. Starscream is only angry, because he's beaten up all the time."

I take out my pad and send them the picture where Starscream is beaten up by Megatron.

Then I stand in the ship with the stuff with that complicated name in one hand and look into the cage before me on the alien critter, that seems to only consist of a mouth and spider-like legs and wonder where it has its veins, where I could sting the syringe into or where it has its nervous system so I can switch it off myself.

The being looks at me with distrust, jumps around, hisses. I'm still thinking and don't pay attention to it. Then it spits green slime stuff against my helmet and I lose my patience. My tail sticks through the cage and pierces it. It's still alive - I startle from its scream of pain that resonates through the thin atmosphere - I pull my tail out and pierce it again and again until it doesn't move anymore. I'm disgusted of and scared from myself.

I don't know what to do, but the next prisoner puts me to similar problems. Starting from the third it becomes less bad. Today night I will be ready for a second shower.

Before that I nicely ask the Cons to vaporize the biological remains, so the humans cannot conduct research on them. For once they agree with me.

When Mark writes me with disappointment I claim that I did that to protect the humans from alien illnesses.

Late at night when I'm in my apartment and about to go to sleep it knocks at my door. I'm so tired that I actually wonder if that could be Starscream. What a bullshit.

It's Lopez.

"Good evening. I hope it's not too inappropriate ..."

"I'm tired and in bad mood. Leave the empty phrases out and just tell me what you want."

"A place to sleep. If you don't mind."

I remember. He lives in another district and is here by coincidence to visit me in the hospital. He cannot go anywhere else. The tourist accommodations are overflown with other visitors who are now stranded here.

These spoiled luxury children. I can sleep anywhere.

"Come in."

Shortly I show him the rooms. He comments: "I had expected you had two beds. As it's common on Mars."

Yes, when I moved in there were two beds. I got the hint and got rid of one of them. Tz, I already have fifteen children.

This was not possible with the other bed, because according to any martian guidelines in the system in a flat with one inhabitant there must be at least one bed.

"No problem, you can have my one. I'm not sleeping in it anyway."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. There are no beds on Cybertron either. Did I not mention that?"

Meanwhile it's even uncomfortable to me to sleep in a bed. It's like sleeping on a silver plate. It takes so much effort to get up.

"I was worried when I heard you came to close quarters with one of the robots. Are you alright?"

"Oh, did that go around?"

"He makes a boast of that."

Yes, that sounds like Starscream. I don't care.

Lopez sees the two pictures on the wall of my living room, or better to say the screen that looks like that. The left one he knows, the beach from my home simulation. The other one is a picture of a river in front of a skyline with a thunderstorm rampaging with black clouds over the buildings. The left one impresses with beauty and peace. The right one looks frightening and sinister. I like that contrast. The sea and the storm, two forces of nature. I imagine them standing up to one another in an eternal fight. Only they are worthy to face each other. At the same time no one can ever win. It always ends in a draw.

"One picture plays before the horizon, the other one behind it" I explain with a grain of philosophy. "They remind me of what is important in life."

"And that's what?"

"Nothing. To hold out in the storm until it's over. We are meaningless in the face of nature." I don't care for Starscream while I look at the pictures. Even Lopez's betrayal now seems so irrelevant to me that I don't care anymore.

"I'm sorry that my message disgruntled you."

"It's okay. It's not your fault. It's the nature of humans to oppress other beings." I'm talking about all the machines who have to work for humans.

I put it with a totally dry voice. He seems to look for a sign in my face that I meant it as a joke.

"I admit that the message can be easily misunderstood without context. Please let me explain the situation."

"What else is left to explain? You were sent by the government to spy on me. Or by your secret service. No idea. I don't care."

"It's completely different. My people trust me. I agreed to be your reference person, so they won't send anyone else. Because you trust me and you talk to me. They would have never let you leave the laboratory. I engaged myself for you."

He spreads his arms in a gesture of vulnerability. "You said you could do my job. Look into my eyes if I say the truth. Test me in a simulation or anyway else."

Oh Primus, I'm so tired. No simulation now.

I give a dismissive gesture. "It doesn't matter. I'm your smallest problem."

"I wish to fulfill our deal. You said it would be the best for both sides. I agree. Trust me."

That's what I said? I don't remember. I say a lot. Was I serious? Maybe I just play along and hope that I'll remember. Besides, I would really like to trust him, at least to keep my rest of humanity.

"Okay. Let's talk about this tomorrow."

I grab my blanket and crouch down in a corner, where I put the blanket around me.

Lopez took his sleeping place on the bed in the wall and looks at me. "You ... ehm ... surely follow some unconventional methods."

"There are no blankets on Cybertron either" I explain. "There I went to places in factories where the cooling systems blew out warm air. The blanket is luxury for me." I'm getting tired of explaining myself to luxury children.

"I mean that after Starscream's thread you are sleeping directly at the escape route."

"Oh."

I grin. Man, he's good. He notices everything. "Starscream just talks a lot. And even if. He doesn't know where I live. He cannot do anything to me."

I command the light to switch off, retreat deeper into my blanket like into a hug and close my eyes in hope to survive another night.

The fear creeps into my dreams. I look into the deep abyss of the barrel of a cannon. Firstly it's the one from Starscream, then from the Donnager, maybe the other way round.

A bang tears me out of my sleep.

Lopez whispers: "Where did the explosions come from?"

Maybe there were several.

"Shockwave shot down a few drones. You know, the ones controlled wirelessy." I laugh quietly. Nearly everything here is controlled wirelessly and under their control. He could've also just switched them off. Maybe he is bored. "It seems someone outside is wondering why they don't reach this district anymore."

"How do you know?"

"Decepticon radio. Keep sleeping."

"Let me send my people a message and inform them about what happens here, so they don't unnecessarily bring themselves into danger."

"I cannot."

"Who else if not you?"

"That's as if several people were in a room. If I shout so loud that someone outside hears it, the people inside it also hear it. Let me sleep or I need to switch you off."

Meanwhile he learned that No means No if I say it and he stays silent. I fall asleep again.

I feel like I was away just for a few minutes, but the indirect lighting shows that the sun rises.

"Did you sleep well?" Lopez voice finally drags me into the present.

I blink to him with tired eyes. "Fair to middling. I woke up to the quietest sound." With that I meant: Every sound he was making. It's like sleeping in a cage with a predator. Ha ha, how funny.

I didn't dare to force my body to sleep by switching it off. I need to be aware what happens around me.

For breakfast I make myself a tuna sandwich. "Do you also want one?"

"Thanks, but I'm not a fan of that."

"Me neither, but I associate it with nice memories."

I'm barely hungry and just manage to eat half of it. Just when I receive Megatron's radio message, who orders me to come to him.

"Oh, wait." I was just about to leave when I remember something. I give my pad to Lopez. "Here, take this. I don't need it anymore."

"Thanks."

He seems to be mildly disappointed. Maybe it's because of the outdated technology from Ceres. Maybe because now he can receive work assignments. I wish him much fun.

I show him how he can reach me, then I go on my way to Megatron.


	30. Martial Law 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megatron discovers the Cavecons. The calculated remaining energy depletes.

When I step into Megatron's hall I look around startled. That's where the Cavecons are. I guess this was Missy's idea. Damn. I didn't want him to see them. Now it's too late.

Megatron lets some of them sit on his servo and looks at them with affection, like the gentle giant that lets birds sit on his hand.

Some of the Cavecons notice me and one - Cassie - beeps a greeting.

Megatron turns around to me. "Conmother. Can you tell me what these adorable creatures do on this primusforsaken planet?"

Oh well, how do I get out of this? I grin flustered. "Well, I was so lonely and the pinball machine was so cute and charming."

He doesn't let me annoy him and looks on them again, somehow thoughtfully. "I wonder how long you're already using the power of the Allspark and hide it from me."

"I tried to tell you, remember? I said: Let's find a way together for our species to coexist, remember? You never listened to me."

I need to come up with something before he gets the wrong ideas.

"These are your biggest fans" I explain and grab a random Cavecon who stands the closest to me. It is Hissy. He twitches back by an inch when I grab him.

"I educated and trained them."

I send the command: "Hide." All of them transform, Hissy in my hand into a stone. They want to impress Megatron. The stone looks perfectly natural. The others on the ground also turned into stones, the ones in Megatron's servo to machine parts that look as if he has just found them in this hall.

"You see? I taught them to move unseen through human territory and on command they can set people to sleep."

Megatron looks pleased. I'm touched that he likes my babies.

"They absolutely wanted to meet you after I told them about you and your heroic deeds. They admire you."

He's surprised. "Heroic deeds?"

"Yes." I remember it well. "Back on Earth when Rage freaked out - you can say he lost his mind" I joke, "you gave him such a punch that he gained back his self control."

I form my small hand to a fist and mimic the movement. "That impressed me a lot. Over that lake, do you remember?"

He ... looks confused. But also flattered.

"Of course I remember. But I expected you to spread lies about me. I thought you would hate me too much to ever say a good word about me."

"I'm not lying to my children."

He looks at me for a long time. That means for him, that my opinion about him is the truth. After all the time I had to think about everything I understand him too well to hate him. He just fights for the survival of their species. I give the Cavecons the order to stop hiding and they are allowed to move freely.

"Then there is still hope for our species. The Decepticons follow me out of their own free will, because we are united by the same goals and because they know I can lead them to success. Maybe you start to understand."

Their energy will be depleted soon. If he doesn't intent to force me using the Allspark, his delight won't last long.

"I promised the Cavecons to bring them to Cybertron and I intent to keep my promise."

Megatron keeps looking at them with affection. "I stay with our deal. You take care of the humans until our work is done, then we will leave this planet. As long as the humans don't rebel against me I will spare these worms."

I nod. That was close. I came out of this situation surprisingly well.

The dome is repaired. Inside the most fit people start to run around without helmets. A group of people takes the ship apart and brings the parts for processing into the research center or into the factory where Megatron resides, although he's located in the deposit, while the humans work in the production hall.

Megatron had the idea to send out the Cavecons for support and to give every Con some helpers. That's convenient, because Missy, my first-built, is Megatron's biggest fan and cannot wait to leave me, while Cassie and Lissy, the most gentle ones in the group, look at him with awe and appreciate my education.

"I swear" I told Megatron. "If one of your people harms them I will kill you all. I'm totally serious about that."

He said I don't need to worry about that.

Now I'm standing outside before the hall and announce their arrival per radio message. "Hello Decepticons." How awkward. "Some small beings will soon join you who offer their service and would like to fulfill tasks for you. Treat them well or you'll be in trouble."

Starscream eagerly wants to know if they're from Megatron. "No" I answer with hesitation. "They all are from me."

Then Starscream wants to know if they'll just start to play pranks and to do nonsense. I ignore him.

Soundwave calls them "the only good thing I ever achieved".

But yet on the way back with the Cavecons I receive looks of distrust, nearly of fear. I know how this looks like. First there were only four alien robots to occupy the district, now they reproduced and there are nineteen, twenty with me, plus Rage who is parked somewhere outside. Where's this supposed to end, in the submission of the whole planet in a few months if they keep reproducing with that speed?

I receive a message from Mark. "Seldra, you said you wouldn't reproduce. You don't need to answer, but please don't lie."

Oh man, that's unbelievable. He thinks they are from me and Starscream. I cannot tell him that the Cavecons are here for a long time either.

I answer to him close to the truth: "I didn't lie. I didn't know they were coming."

In his next message he asks me something about protection and mood swings. Oh Primus, that is awkward. I ignore the message.

Furthermore, lacking a better source for answers the humans start to send questions to their conquerors using the script I gave them. I'm scolded by Soundwave for that: "Conmother, that's your fault. Do something about that."

What am I supposed to do, shall I take their pads away? Then they couldn't work anymore. I write to Mark: "Would you please inform the humans about the Cavecons so they stop bombing us with questions?"

And what does he do? He shares his research notes with my explanations and the pictures. The chaos I caused I cannot take back, I can only increase it, no matter what I do. I giggle about my deficiency, but nobody shares my humor.

Starscream comments: "You are just incompetent, Sparkling."

General agreement.

Soundwave sends: "Shockwave, did you see the picture Conmother made of you?"

Shockwave sends to me: "You want that we fight about who is allowed to kill you first, hm, Conmother?"

I answer without emotion: "I don't need to do anything about that one." They will soon all fall down motionless. Maybe earlier when they're upset.

Soundwave comments: "The worst thing is that the worms like that mischief. The ether is full of that stuff."

I explain to him: "Now it's human mating season. Check on this if you don't believe me." Ha ha, that's not even a joke. It's always human mating season. But Soundwave seems to be busy and doesn't send anything.

Only several minutes later he responds: "I don't find anything about that and I'm not in the mood to look further." Yeah, okay, then just don't do it I only think.

At the construction site Starscream who supervises the humans at their work laments: "It's like watching antroids who put in a lot of effort to do even the simplest task."

"Antroids are busy and can lift things of several times their own weight. I take this as a compliment."

Slowly he turns around and glares at me. "I meant that they're working too slowly, you stupid thing. I wonder if they work harder if I crush some of them."

I reply: "Humans are no Decepticons who react quiet well to punishment."

"Oh." I see combativeness lightens up in his optics. "Because I showed you mercy yesterday now you're testing your boundaries. What do you think how long I will take such provocativeness?"

With a look on my inner timer I smile. "I would also like to kick your afterburner. If I would have done that back on Cybertron you would be more polite now to me and to the humans. We can catch up on this if you like."

The timer goes down to zero. Any moment the energy reserves of the Cons should be depleted, but Starscream is alive and kicking as before. The seconds pass.

Starscream gives me a cold smile. He comes closer. I control myself to not retreat.

He whispers: "Soundwave told me what you're talking about at night with your little friend."

So what? I never said anything they could use against me. I just look at him bored.

"He says you're crying in your sleep."

I startle. Is that true? Why didn't Lopez tell me?

"You flinched and with this gave yourself away. You are mine."

The minutes pass. Any second. I'm getting nervous. Did I make a mistake? I recalculate it, again and again, the amount of energon I gave them divided by their usage. I know how much longer the protoforms have lived when I gave them a specific amount of energy and I know how the usage increases with size. The uncertainty maybe causes a few hours difference, at most. And still they are there. I'm clueless.

I'm angry at myself. I overlooked something, now I have to improvise. I use this feeling and look at him as if I was angry at him. "Always your empty threats. Attack me finally."

I prepare myself to jump. If he uses his EMP I have a few seconds before the pain overcomes me and I become helpless. I will try to drag Starscream with me. Shared pain is half the pain. He will regret to have messed with me and rethink it ten times. I nearly wish he would do it, so I can finally make clear that you can't just mess with me.

Starscream continues: "Ha ha, no, I've got a much better idea. Soundwave told me where you live. Aww, you have an entrance door and a ventilation shaft. Both are controlled electronically and are not bulletproof. How sad.

"I have a job to do. Are you attacking now or are you done with sabre-rattling? Because then I leave now."

"Watch your steps. I will be there when you need me the least."

When I leave he sends to me: "I drag you out of your hole at night."

I answer: "Just come, I cannot wait. You don't dare anyway."

I don't receive an answer for that. No idea if he received it.

Megatron is astonished when I step into the deposit hall - his command center - and he sees what I carry. The remaining Cavecons ignore me.

"Megatron" I just get to the point. "Starscream wants to build the new core in the middle of the district. When you ... when we depart, it will crush a giant hole into the dome. I think we should build the core outside."

"That takes too long. The humans with their tiny feet need an eternity for that distance and they have to put on and refill those helmets all the time."

He points to the bundle in my arms. "And what is that?"

"That's a baby, a human sparkling."

I step closer, so he can better see it. "It's completely helpless, makes dirt and noise. Do you want to hold it?"

Currently it sleeps peacefully when I hold it out to him. Children trust me.

Megatron hesitates for a moment. "Take it away from me."

"Okay." I hold it close to me again. "Then let me tell you how to make humans work faster."

I shudder when I think about the evening. During the day I avoid Lopez out of embarrassment, but in the evening in my flat we meet again. I don't bring it over me to keep the door locked and to play dead. The baby is meanwhile back by its mother where I borrowed it.

"I need to talk to you."

My heart drops. Nobody announces good news like this. I look at him full of expectations.

"You told me their energy would be depleted today, which I passed on to my soldiers. They don't trust you and I lose my credibility. What am I supposed to tell them now?"

"No idea. That Megatron kills them if they attack him."

"They accept their dead for our victory."

Oh my, why is everything so complicated. "I think about that."

But for him the case is not closed yet. "How long will it take?"

"I don't know. According to my calculations they should be non-functional by now."

"Maybe you miscalculated."

"A machine doesn't miscalculate. Here, check for yourself if you want."

I throw my data and the formula onto the screen in my living room. But something is wrong. With disbelieve I stare at the right side, where in a box I see the stylized head of Soundwave together with the Cybertronian letters for: "We are prepared. Stupid One."

I stare on it for several seconds, not able to react to this, that's how surprised I am.

Until Lopez pulls my out of my thoughts. "What does it say? Is it a threat?"

"Soundwave listens." I make a decision. "We shouldn't talk about that."

He nods insightfully.

With shaking hand I grab my blanket and take my sleeping place beside the entrance door. At least this gives me a fake feeling of safety. The words from Starscream are running through my mind: "I drag you out of your hole at night. I drag you out of your hole at night."

I stare in front of me on the ground. What in the name of Unicron am I doing here? They will kill me, at least when their mission here is complete. I have no chance to get out of this alive.

Then I look at the pictures on the wall and I know what I have to do. No, I need to pull myself together. I must not show any weakness. They loathe weakness. Only when I prove my bravery and my strength I have a chance.


	31. Martial Law 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra spots the mistake in her calculations, but has to keep it to herself. Seldra sends Lopez to fight Starscream and discovers a rebellion. Seldra finds a secret communication channel.

I dream of something with Bolt in the arena and suddenly the realization drags me out of my sleep.

Megatron who switched off his radio module and stays in the deposit hall.

Soundwave who stops his research.

Starscream who rather lures me into traps instead of attacking me himself.

And Bolt, who lacked energon and developed an ENERGY SAVING method to attack. That's it. They adapted and they save energy, foremost by strict division of labor, but also by dropping unnecessary activities.

Tantrums cost a lot of energy. Fights cost a lot of energy. Maybe I don't need to be worried about Starscream after all.

At breakfast Lopez annoys me again. "I think it's not a good idea to provoke the robots. I'm not only saying this because of you, but also because of the other inhabitants."

I cannot tell him what I know. Soundwave listens and I don't know what consequences it would have if he knew what I know. Maybe they would change their strategy. The best thing is if I keep this to myself and make them use up their energy.

So I only say: "I'm the expert for human-machine-communication. Let me handle this."

But he doesn't give up yet. "Or could you teach us in the simulations how to fight them? Then we can help you."

I laugh out loud, especially for Soundwave. "If I knew how to beat them I would do it myself."

"Back on the Donnager you showed me the simulation with that arena. You switched off three of them. If you could teach us how to do that ..."

I sigh. There I was showing him the only one of my many fights who didn't end in my defeat and humiliation and he overestimates my abilities.

"That was just a simulation. In all my time on Cybertron I never won a single fight. I'm not as strong as you might think and I cannot help you."

"You are wrong. We can achieve a lot together."

"Okay ..." I'm tired of this discussion. Shall he see for himself how it is to be in my shoes.

My tail shoots forward underneath the table and pierces his neck. He is in a simulation before I give him the chance to notice what happens.

Lopez stood with my body in bot mode in the arena on Cybertron, Starscream before him. Relaxed I leaned backwards as invisible viewer to enjoy the show.

"Here, you wanted to learn how to beat the robots. I wish you much fun."

Lopez stared on his arms who were shrouded by thin metal. Quickly he managed to expose the pea shooter that he already knew from the weapon tests and also discovered the laser.

"You send me into the battle ring against a giant robot and you give me an air pistol and a laser pointer?"

"That's how it feels like to be me. The enemies are always too huge, the weapons are always too weak. Come up with something. Maybe I can get some inspiration."

I grinned internally and wished I had a bag of pop corn. "Try your tactics."

Lopez ducked behind a wreckage part and shot out of his cover on Starscream several times. It had no effect, except that Starscream ran to him with giant steps and cut him in half with saw blades.

"Ah, that hurt." Lopez found himself without visual input as nothing but a ghost, so I could exchange some words with him.

"That's how dying feels like" I commented.

"How do you want to know?"

"The Decepticons sawed me open two times. The first time I died as a human and rose again as half machine. One more try."

I brought him back to the beginning, back to the arena. "And now try my tactics. Scare him. Tell him what happens if he attacks you."

He hesitated. Maybe he thought about what to say or if the whole thing was too stupid to him.

"Come to me" he finally said. "Three heavily armed space ships circle around the planet and ten orbital cannons point directly to you. You will be dead before you put one feet in my direction."

Starscream hesitated a bit unsure. Then he lifted his arm, where he exposed his EMP cannon and roasted Lopez's intestines. At least he survived a few more seconds.

Lopez was back at the empty place. And waited. Then he asked after a while, what interrupted me in my thinking: "Are you sending me back again?"

"No, I'm analyzing." I meant I was thinking. Starscream does not let threats hold him back, only for a while. Hm, how inconvenient. "Starscream's reaction was unexpected."

"What does that mean? I thought you were controlling the simulation?"

"Yes and no. I can only pay attention to a few things at once. The simulation is filled with life by my subconsciousness. Starscream behaves as I know him, but I'm not controlling him."

"Good" I say when Lopez wakes up with his face in his breakfast. I have to fight down a grin. At least he landed softly.

"That's all I can say about that. If that's not enough it's your problem."

He only sighs and we spend the remaining meal in silence.

On my round when I pass through the scrap hall I discover Lopez together with a group of people who are conspicuously gathering in a corner and look around all the time.

I'm having a closer look. Someone is tipping on Lopez's shoulder when I get close.

He comes to me with a friendly smile. "If there are still some reasons for distrust between us I would like to clear them up."

"Oh, because you tried to sound me out now you're scared I could take revenge?" I raise my voice in joy. "Yes, that's a wonderful idea. Thanks, I didn't think of that before."

"This is not the time for jokes. Are you on our side or not?"

"It's always time for jokes. When the times are exceptionally bad at least I have some fun. Wait until you're as old as me, then you'll understand."

Of course I'm only technically speaking older if you count the time I spent in hibernation, but that suffices for me to tease him with that.

I push Lopez beside and he hesitates. "So, what's going on here?"

Lopez gives the other ones a nod and they let me pass.

I know that machine with the three upright cuboids around a cylinder too well which they build here.

I wave Lopez to come here and whisper to him with anger.

"You know that I'm half human, half machine. You cannot deduce from me to others. The few degree of temperature increase if you shoot me with an EMP are enough to bring me suffering. The others are immune to that, they can take hundreds of degree temperature difference. The EMP has barely any effect on other Cybertronians."

Loud I say so the whole group can hear it: "I have to confiscate this machine."

The humans look at me scared when I expose my tail and give the machine an energon shock who blows it.

"What?" I wonder turning to Lopez when I see the people's reaction. "Didn't you tell them what I am?"

"No, only the least necessary."

"You let the humans roast my intestines and don't even tell them beforehand? Do you have only the slightest idea how that feels like?"

"That would be an acceptable sacrifice to free us. Of course we would offer you the best medical treatment to reduce your suffering."

"I don't care for your medical treatment! Soundwave supervises all radio transmissions and Shockwave shoots everything which looks like a threat. I strongly discourage you to make any rebellion plans."

When I want to leave, Lopez holds me back. "May I speak to you in a simulation?"

"No, you can be grateful that I don't report this. I don't want to have any business with this."

"Good." He smiles conciliatory. "Can you at least provide us a secure communication channel? Then you're not bothered and we don't endanger anyone."

I sigh. "Hm ... I don't know. I'll think about that." If they just stop with their crap then.

At the moment I'm totally uninspired how this would look like and I'm not in the mood to spend more time on this.

The humans are acting smarter than I thought and found out how to use the script to directly contact me as well.

Some people speak out their anger and call me a freak. I filter those messages out and don't pay them any attention.

Then I receive a message from a man whose name I don't know and I hesitate. He writes he has a kink for robots and makes me an explicit offer, the whole thing complemented with a photo. I wonder if there is a secret message, a deeper meaning behind this and search through it like stupid, but I don't find anything.

Then an order from Megatron reaches me. Damn, I'm in trouble. Soundwave complained to him about the flooded ether.

But Megatron wasn't spared, too. Despite he deactivated is own radio module, his screen is able to receive messages. When I step into the deposit hall he throws them onto the big screen. Love letters from human women. And photos of their breasts.

Megatron sighs.

I explain: "Human females ... are ... attracted ... by power."

I cannot bear this and laugh heavily.

"Silence!"

I put a fist into my mouth, and pull myself together as good as I can and try to think about something serious. Humans who saw open cute protoforms for example.

"Tell the humans to stop this nonsense! The message system is to coordinate their work. Not for displaying."

"I cannot. It's mating season now, humans are only following their instincts. The humans cannot concentrate on their work if their needs are not met."

"That's disgusting."

"What's disgusting? You mean something like this?"

I generate another picture and send it to him. Into the meta data I write: "Shipping intensifies!"

"Stop that nonsense." He doesn't react to the message.

"The humans do their work and the core will be finished soon. Don't worry."

He is too exhausted to waste his energy on further discussions.

Starscream contacts me: "Sparkling, come here."

Oh, what can this be about. The messages the humans are sending to each other? The cyber-pornographic pictures? Is he looking for someone to test his new provocations on?

I reach the construction site. "The humans work faster since we show progress bars beside the blueprints and give them points for every completed task. Are you still not satisfied with their performance?"

It is one of my genius ideas to write beside the progress bar: "x % done until the robots leave." That has an incredible effect on the people here to work faster.

"What? No." He's confused. For machines who constantly perform the same it must be incomprehensible how humans can do more work in less time than in more time. "The work is progressing well. It's because of something else."

He catches himself and scolds me: "I prohibited you to use simulations."

He's speaking about today morning. Soundwave told him what I did to Lopez. "I only let him face you. You're always taking humans apart so nicely."

Now he's confused again. "You ... you were never there when I did."

"Oh, but I know your weapons and your temper and I like to watch that show in simulations."

He wants to say something with his lifted digit pointed to me in a threat, but he cannot. He's flustered.

He let's his arms sink. "Anyhow. I request an official prohibition from Megatron if you do it again."

I'm sprouting visibly and pretend as if he has said something great. "Yes, wonderful idea. I let Lopez face Megatron. That will teach him some respect. You have to show the humans who's in charge. Thanks, Starscream."

He's speechless. I clap my hands as if I would start to do a task and leave while he's confused.

Well, who would've guessed. I found his weakness. The mighty Starscream everyone is either fearing or loathing, who has to play Megatron's doormat all the time cannot handle compliments. Why did I not find this out earlier? Now it seems so obvious.

When I realize that I still got no complaint about my hidden message in the picture I get it. I write to Lopez that I want to talk with him about something.

We meet in the district.

I announce to him: "I found a secure communication channel for you."

I send him one of the pictures of mating Cybertronians.

Lopez is confused. "Is this one of your jokes? I don't have time for this."

"Look into the meta data."

He scrolls down to a free text field where I wrote to: "The Decepticons are running on low flame and skip tasks they consider useless. Soundwave doesn't scan porn pictures. You can write into them what you want and the Cons will never know, just try it."

He rolls his eyes and rubs his forehead. "Miss Sadr'khor, that's the most absurd idea for a secure communication channel I ever heard about. This is absolutely not secure."

"You didn't have your party pills today, did you?" I tease him. "I didn't see you taking them for a while. No wonder your mood is so bad."

I send him another picture in case he doesn't have enough own carrier material. The message is: "All have a bone to pick with me, except Starscream, who laments for nothing." If this doesn't cause any reaction then nothing will.

"No idea what you expected. Meanwhile you should know me better. I'm not known for serious solutions. No, there is no easier or more secure way, whatever that means. We are machines. You cannot keep any secrets from us you're sending digitally, I already explained to you."

I leave him alone with his new toy. It's his decision if he wants to use it or not.

A message from Soundwave reaches everyone in the district. "Who of you worms is the Dark Wolf?"

Nearby the pads beep and the people look at each other in confusion.

I can imagine what that means. The instructors of Lopez tried to contact him. No idea what they want, but Soundwave seems to prefer if Lopez himself answers them.

I reply to Soundwave: "You're not translating Kieron Lopez. You reach him on my old pad."

I wait for half an hour. When Soundwave comments: "This human is a pervert, too" I know enough.

Then I send Lopez a message: "Uh, is this from your private collection? ;)"

His annoyed glance when we meet each other afterwards can mean anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Officially he is only named K. Lopez. I needed a fitting first name, so I went searching. Lopez is Spanish for wolf, or for son of the wolf. Kieron is old Irish, meaning the black one, the dark one, making him literally the dark wolf. You can thank me later.


	32. Martial Law 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra fights Starscream.

The next time I meet Starscream - in the district, where he watches the ant street of workers carrying stuff from one place to the other - he's the old one again. "If you think that I spare you only because you smear oil around my intake you're wrong. I just wait for the best moment when you're the weakest."

"I've been nice to you once and now you want to kill me. It's no wonder nobody likes you."

"Said the most hated person of Cybertron."

Then he sees the item I hold in my hand and he steps closer to better see it. "Is that tea?"

"Yes. In case I feel like throwing something at you."

For historical reasons I should have made it with mosses and lichens, but this time it had to be martian tea substitution powder.

Starscream forms a fist and fights back his anger.

"And you know what?" I add. "This time I won't say sorry."

"Aww, a little rebel." Starsceam beats the cup out of my hand. The tea spills down and trickles away in the dry ground. "I really got the impression that your life means absolutely nothing to you."

"You should have killed me when you could."

"Who says I can't?"

"I."

We glare at each other. The air nearly rips apart out of tension. The humans stop their work, hold their breath. Even the wind seems to freeze.

Then suddenly from the ranks of the humans the Cybertronian word for "peace" resonates, which sounds like weapons that shut down.

We both turn around in surprise. The voice belongs to no one we know.

When Starscream threatening moves closer to the source of the voice, the humans retreat and unblock the view on Carla, who keeps standing like rooted and holds her pad in her hand. Now I'm really surprised. I didn't show that to her.

"Hey. What are you doing there?"

Out of fear for Carla's life I move closer to Starscream. Who points a cannon to me. "You stay there."

The look into the cannon freezes me. I have no choice.

Carla blushes and stutters her answer: "I ... I'm scientist and analyze the Cybertronian language."

"Are you eavesdropping?"

The stuttering becomes worse.

"I ... I'm sorry, the l-language is fascinating, b-but I you're speaking too fast, I only hear some chunks. I don't understand much of what you're saying."

Starscream demands: "If I wanted you to understand something, I would speak your language. Give me that."

When Starscream retreats his weapon, because his thoughts are occupied with grabbing the pad, I rush to him. I nearly reach him, then he suddenly turns around and throws me to the ground. In front of all people he puts a foot on my back. The weight presses the air out of my lungs with a quiet scream. While I get some sand in my mouth.

I expose my tail and try blindly to reach a place at his leg, where I can receive control over the limb. But his servo grabs my tail. With the screech of metal he breaks off the tip of my tail and throws it away. Oh, damn.

He bends down to me. "What did you say? That you can defeat me or something? Can you repeat that?"

But without air I cannot even squeak. So I send to him: "Yes, I can kill you."

Still threatening, dominating but with less self esteem he asks: "Right, and how would you do it?"

"Not in front of the humans."

I smile. The joke is that I actually don't bluff. Starscream is too huge. With a strong energon shock from my spark I could overload and kill him, but according to my calculations the heat would kill my human body. I would consider it in the least emergency.

"You are unbelievable. Nobody buys that. Get lost."

He takes his foot from me.

I sort my limbs and slowly get up from the hollow Starscream pushed into the ground with my body. Wipe off the red dust, looking at him all the time. Spit out the sand. Wipe over my mouth.

"Aww, are you starting to cry, Sparkling?"

But there are no tears rising inside of me but burning anger.

Suddenly I transform and jump to him.

Nonchalantly, nearly bored he makes a step back and strikes after me. The strike pulls me off my feet.

But I let his arm glide by below me, attach the remaining tail to him and slide around his arm. Up above I expose my pea shooter and from close I shoot a salvo directly in his face, from which a few bullets hit an optical sensor.

While my weapon is weak, from this distance its enough to cause some fine, white cracks all over his optical sensor.

"You little ..."

Starscream tries to grab me, but I glide out of his closing servo and am gone before it's shut.

He continues to strike and grab after me. I stay on the side of his damaged optical sensor.

He's much bigger and faster than me. It would be of no use to run away. Only one hit and I would be done. I must not make any mistake. I let him dribble me.

But before he gets tired of me we reach a building and I disappear through the door.

"Stay here, Conmother, I kick your afterburner!"

He rips open the gate beside the door and finds me in the scrap hall.

I'm just jumping and climbing up a hill while I keep an optical sensor on Starscream.

Starscream reaches the foot of my hill and pulls out an arm full of scrap.

I find a huge cannon, nearly as big as me and connect to it. But in that moment the scrap slides down as a small avalanche and the cannon drags me down, directly to Starscream.

I use the fall to point the heavy cannon and fire. Starscream stumbles a few steps backwards.

That gives me a moment of time. I grab into my hammer space and pull out a screwdriver that looks like the one Patchwork treated me with. Or similar. I still try to reconstruct its functionality.

"It's enough" Starscream says and exposes his EMP cannon.

Quickly I jump on his arm and pound the small alien screwdriver into the mechanic.

Starscream transforms into a jet. He slips down below me when he accelerates to the gate and is gone before I hit the ground.

I transform back and take some deep breathes. My heart is pounding like a war drum. That was close. For a second I thought I would die. I cannot believe I survived.

Breathing is hard. I still feel Starscream's weight on my back that presses me into the ground. I clamp an arm to my body and slowly return to the others.

Lopez approaches me. Asks if I need a doctor.

"No, no."

What is he thinking? I feel great. Next time Starscream will think twice before touching me. This is only physical.

I go further and pick up the tip of my tail, which I stick back at its place.

Then I sit down exhausted and look around with discontent.

Shortly after I receive a radio message from Megatron: "Conmother, come here."

Oh damn, I'm in trouble. I don't want to go there. But I never run from a fight. Not that it would help me in any way.

I go to the deposit hall. Take a deep breath before I step in.

As expected Megatron and Starscream are standing there.

But what I didn't expect: Starscream stands there like a picture of misery with a dented cheek. I'm too worried about myself to be happy or wondered about that.

I step closer. "Lord Megatron?"

"Your fights are delaying our progress. Hence I take some drastic measures. Stand in front of each other."

Insecurely I look around and slowly step closer. What's this going to? I see in Starscream's face that he feels the same. Now we are facing each other as ordered.

"Starscream. Tell Conmother everything about her that hacks you off."

He doesn't wait for a second invitation. "You are a weakling and a disgrace to our species. You stole the Allspark and helped the Autobots and with that you're damning our species to extinction." Yeah, yeah, the old story. "Back on Cybertron you poured tea over me. You're spoiling our offspring. Megatron protects you all the time, you don't deserve that. You're childish and it's a mistake to give you any responsibility."

He pauses. Megatron asks: "Anything else?"

I ask: "What about the pictures I spread about you?"

"No" he says. "They only show how small-minded you are."

Megatron plays back to me. "Apologize to Starscream."

I hesitate, but give in to the pressing silence. "I'm sorry I poured tea over you, that was an accident. Sorry I took the Allspark from the Autobots and ran away from you without hearing out both sides first. I don't want you go extinct. I'm working on my fighting abilities. Sorry for the rest, too."

"Starscream, do you accept the apology?"

"Yes."

"Good. Conmother, it's your turn. Tell Starscream everything about him that makes you angry."

I hesitate. Am I really allowed to speak freely?

"Speak already" Megatron pushes. "You've got one Klik."

Okay. I take a deep breath. "You're mean to me all the time. On Cybertron you threw me around and fired your EMP on me. Here you're provoking me all the time. You lured me into a trap on Lockdown's ship which nearly killed me. You're threatening all the time to kill me. You're never doing what I tell you, although it's my task to tell you these things or you're discussing all the time. You're such a coward and you only have a big flap if Megatron is not present. And you're calling me Sparkling all the time, start to learn my name."

That's ... everything I can think off.

Megatron asks: "Anything else?"

I shake my head.

"Starscream. Apologize."

Starscream hums and haws. "Sorry."

"Conmother, do you accept that apology?"

Is he serious? Do I have a choice? "Eh, yes."

"Then now shake servos."

Reluctantly Starscream holds his giant metal paw to me which I grab with my small fleshy hand.

Megatron sighs. "You are like two protoforms who fight for daddy's attention. That's unworthy for Decepticons."

He looks at us disapproving for a while. "Good, you may leave now" he decides. "And no more fight. Come to me if you cannot settle your fights like highly developed life forms."

Outside before the gate Starscream once again turns to me. "By the way. I kill you anyway if I get the chance." He laughs. "And until then I make your life hell."

"You're such a dick."

"I know."

If he announces it so big like that I highly doubt he's serious. But I also know this game. "If you say please I repair your optical sensor."

He seems to consider it. "Prove to me how brave you are and repair my Null Ray" he suggests instead. He holds his arm out to me.

I stare on it. Think. I don't want to do this. "I promise you I do it if you say please."

"Tz. It's not important enough that I would crawl in the dust in front of you. Don't worry. Shockwave will repair me."

Then I suggest: "How about that? When we are on Cybertron we settle this in the arena?"

"Tz. You're not showing up anyway."

He agrees. That means for me that he will leave me alone for a while. Probably. Maybe. Until he decides otherwise.

Like every time most of the pain fades until the next morning. I still feel every bruise when I touch it by accident, but I can move without anyone noticing anything.

Following my job when I reach the construction site Starscream turns to me. "Conmother, you're not needed anymore here."

Carla with her pad is standing before him and explains to me apologizing that she takes my job to engage for the humans and to talk to Starscream.

With dread I look at this scene. "But ... but ..."

Starscream guesses my thoughts. "Oh, you're scared that I hurt the worm."

"This is really not a good idea. I know how much you hate humans."

Even more if he hears what Carla's job is. Or does he already know?

Carla reassures me: "We talked this out and the Big One agrees. I hope you don't mind."

I don't know what to do. They all seem to be serious about that.

"Okay. Carla, if he hurts you call me and I kick his ass. You know how to contact me."

Before I leave once again Starscream steps to me, out of Carla's hearing range. "The core is finished soon. We won't need you anymore, only the Allspark."

"It disappears when I die."

"Not anymore with this construction. It stabilizes the Allspark. What, didn't anyone tell you? What were you thinking why we don't just use the old core and take all this effort to let these worms build a new one?"

"You're a dirty liar. You're just too weak to leave the planet on your own."

"Tz. You will see when you step into the core."

I cannot read his face. Is he serious or is he just trying to scare me again? "I hope you can leave fast enough before I drag you with me."

Starscream laughs. "I'm not worried about your stump engines."

"You would be surprised."

It's not that bad. I already got an idea what to do with my new free time. Time for a lot of nonsense.


	33. Martial Law 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra plays with the children.

At least I managed to convince Megatron to release the moms with little babies from their work, but the older children are mostly left on their own. There are not enough people who are too old for physical work and can or want to take care of the children. So I support them in supervision.

At the moment I tell the children some stories.

"Oh no, what's that?"

I expose my tail and turn around to it. "The dangerous alien from space came to kill us all! Run before it's too late!"

I jump up and run in circles, the tail slightly see-sawing behind me. Then I stop and look around to all sides. "Good, I think I outdistanced it."

My tail tips on my shoulder. Terrified I turn around.

The children laugh.

"Oh no, it caught up with me!"

My tail tip stabs to my head. I dodge. Then I make fists like a boxer. "Come on, I kick your ass!"

Two punches miss, the next two hit.

The children cheer me up.

With the next hit my tail curls up my arm to the head. "Oh no, it was a trap!"

I grab the tail, slam myself to the ground and choke it. "Take this, you monster!"

It hedges to the front between my hands and curls around my neck. Retching I crawl backwards. "Help, help, it's kidnapping me!"

I rattle.

The children rush to help me. They unwrap the tail from my neck, together hold it and give it nearly little punches with their tiny hands.

"Okay, it's enough" I decide and pick myself up. "The alien has enough, do you see? It's sad."

I let the tail tip hang like a thirsty flower.

"What do we do now with it?" I ask everyone.

The children look at me questioning. Of course they have their own ideas. They just don't know what I want from them. They think I was up to something. Maybe later, but now I'm curious about what they would do on their own.

A child says: "We send it away. Until it's nice again."

"Yes, we send it to the moon!"

"That's a great idea" I say and add: "How about we explain to him what it did wrong? And then we make friends with it?"

"No!" the children's choir raises their voices. "It must to the moon. To the moon!"

I laugh. "Okay. We build a rocket and send it to the moon. Where are my rocket engineers? Who can draw the most beautiful rocket?"

Finally with the amount of rockets we can not only send the alien away but have enough left to send a whole army of attacking aliens back home. We agree to send it to Phobos, the close moon, because we're nice.

Sometimes when I spent time with the protoforms I told them stories from Earth. For instance: "The children on Earth play with figures that look like us. See here."

I made a figure that looked like Starscream and one of Megatron, not bigger than my human hand.

Then I held them in front of each other, wagged them and spoke with disguised voice: "I will lead the Decepticons, I'm the leader of the future!"

Answer from Megatron: "You couldn't lead antroids to a picnic!"

The protoforms laughed rattling.

Then a small, well-aimed shot hit the Starscream figure, then another one Megatron. They bursted in my hands, which I retracted terrified. The protoforms ran apart.

I looked into the direction from where the shots had come. The real Starscream stepped closer. Oh, shit.

He built himself threatening above me and asked rhetorically: "Is this how to teach protoforms respect of authorities?"

I smiled shyly. "I did not get to the respect part yet."

Threatening he points his digit to me. "Watch yourself, Sparkling. We have an optic on you. You better think twice what you do."

When he was gone I waited for a while, made sure he was really gone and gave the protoforms new figures for playing.

Days later when I visited again, again they played with the figures. Or still.

A dino-like one wagged the figures while he made them talk. "I'm Starscream - future leader of the Decepticons!"

And the Megatron figure said: "You couldn't lead antroids to a picnic!"

That was everything they knew and everything they came up with. In hindsight this made me understand the basic difference between humans and machines. That was one of the reason why I decided that I didn't want to become a whole Cybertronian. And that I had to get rid of the Allspark and stop the transformation.

Because I was released from my previous task I have more time to spend with the children.

I front of their astonished eyes I take out a figure from under my top. "This is Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. He's looking for a new home for his family." I pass the figure to a little girl for playing.

She asks: "What happened to his old home?"

"That's destroyed and he cannot live there anymore."

"How was it destroyed?"

"That's ... what I tell you later."

I take out another figure. "That's his best friend Starscream. He helps Megatron to find a new home." I pass it to another child.

"Mom" the boy asks, "why is the best friend of Megatron named Starscream?"

"Please call me Seldra." They remember half of the explanation of my name. "Rumors say that every time he tries to cap Megatron and fails, he goes out, alone, in a starlit night and screams the pain about his humiliation into the sky. They say the sound is so terrifying that it blocks the ether, so nobody hears him."

The children pay close attention and ask, why a friend does something like that. I explain to them the complicated relations among Decepticons and how hard it is for them to handle friendship.

I await one of the rare moments when Megatron leaves his place in the hall to personally look around if everything is fine. Once I saw him visiting Rage with a canister. No idea why he does that.

Anyhow, now one of these moments came and Megatron moves through the district.

From the crowd a little girl rushes to Megatron and hugs his Pede. "I like you very much."

Perplexed he looks at that small being. "What's that?"

I explain: "A human protoform. You can raise and educate it as you want. Do you like it?"

Like with the baby Megatron stares at it for a second before he demands: "Take it away from me."

This time I don't. "You just pick up the child with two digits and put it somewhere else. Carefully, then nothing happens."

Indeed Megatron picks up the girl who chuckles about the funny roller coaster ride and takes it to the adults.

Yet her mom rushes through the crowd and gratefully accepts her child. I hear her scolding quietly: "What are you doing? That's dangerous."

While the mom carries the child away, the girl looks to me. I give her a thumbs up before she leaves my view.

My other hand is held by a little boy.

Megatron looks to us. "What is that?" He points to the figure the boy holds. "Give it to me."

The boy places the relatively tiny figure into the huge servo Megatron holds out to him. Megatron moves the figure to his optics, so he can take a closer look.

Then he glares at me. "Conmother! What's that supposed to mean?"

I explain: "I'm mediating between our people and made a figure of you." Of course he knows that. He remembers this from Cybertron. "Do you like it?"

He crushes it and throws them before my feet. "Stop this nonsense!"

The boy is terrified. He pulls himself together and doesn't start crying. I told him he'll get a new figure if that happens.

I ask Megatron: "What don't you like about that figure?"

"It puts me in disgrace."

"Okay, I understand. I'm sorry, Lord Megatron, I will improve."

He looks at me for a while trying to figure out if I'm serious. I am, but probably not in the way he assumes.

I couldn't concentrate anymore. The street smelled charming as I had never noticed before. I fell down on my knees and looked at the metal, touched the nice cool surface. That was crazy. Or wasn't it? At least I was half a machine.

I moved a finger over the metal. Raised the finger to my nose and thought to smell metal on it. That wasn't possible. I licked my finger and fancied to taste something that reminded me of fresh water after enduring thirst for so long. But the ground was too hard and massive.

I searched for something smaller, only to convince myself that my behavior was totally inadequate. In the corner of a street, loosened by one of the countless fights I picked up small metal parts.

Mhm, these metal pieces smelled good. Mhm, they looked delicious. No, that was stupid. They would claw my throat. But they seemed so tempting to me. What was wrong with me? Was I losing my mind?

I dropped them and instead of those pieces with their sharp edges I found some screws and nuts.

I could just lick them, that was no problem. Then I would see that they didn't taste well.

Mhm, this taste of metal reminded me of meat. Maybe my stomach had transformed. I could taste a nut which was rounded hence nothing bad should happen.

Oh, I felt better, as if a missing puzzle piece had relocated. Could it be possible? They still smelled delicious, I craved for more.

I stuffed screws and nuts into my mouth. I squeaked when the pointed tips of some screws scratched down my esophagus. I retched up some blood and spewed it out. Man, that was stupid, why had I done this?

Suddenly it was just normal, rusty metal again. I couldn't believe what I just had done.

On the square in the middle of the district in the next morning a big, covered thing is standing.

The bone-dry air makes me cough.

I send a message to the screen of the big conqueror, which also attracts the three other Cons.

Megatron stomps close. "What's that thing?" he asks impatiently.

I pull down the cloth. It's a ten feet high statue of our conqueror.

"What in ... I told you to stop this nonsense."

"You said the figure was disgraceful and you were totally right, it was way too small! Among humans there's the honorable tradition to honor people by putting up monuments to them. That's what I did so people remember you."

I'm talking fast, cough once and point to the base. "Here, I put this inscription below it, to our master Lord Megatron, may his glory and fame shine eternally - I had no better idea, somehow nobody wanted to help me, I can change it for you if you don't like it."

Megatron stares at the stature.

I wait for a reaction. "Do ... do you like it?"

He turns away. "Well, let it stand."

Starscream stares at him: "What?"

Soundwave stares at him: "What?"

Shockwave stares at him and doesn't say anything.

From all sides the Decepticons look at their leader with surprise.

Megatron adds: "It will awe the humans and remind them who's in charge here when I'm too busy to take care of their little problems. Let it stand."

Megatron is about to leave when an attack of coughing overcomes me. I feel hot.

Megatron turns to me. "What's with you?"

I need some moments until I can breath again and answer: "Nothing."

Annoyed he rolls his optical sensors. "Oh, you're playing one of your little games again."

He points to the humans who curiously gathered nearby. "You there. Take care for her! If she dies I wipe out your entire species!"

Lopez steps out of the crowd to me and quietly says: "Come, I take you to a doctor."

"No! No doctor!" I don't feel well, but not so bad that I would consider a doctor's appointment.

"The Big One wants that we take care of you. We still need some time. What's going on with you?"

"Time for what? Oh, you better not tell me. I only need some rest."

I cough again and feel something wet hitting my palm. Startled I look at it and hide the hand behind my back - but Lopez is faster, grabs my wrist and sees the red slime sticking out between the fingers of my fist. "To me this doesn't look as if some rest would help."

I tried to lie to myself and hoped it would turn out well at the end. But I see he was right. I surrender.

"Come. The researchers know you. You have nothing to fear."

That's what he thinks, but I know that my hybrid organism bears its own horrors.

I nod and let him bring me to the research facility.

Mark leads my examination together with Carla who is busy taking notes as usual.

Because x-ray and magnet resonance imaging won't work they use the ultrasound device again, but this time they examine me so thoroughly from head to toe that I'm uncomfortable. Together with the data from the medi-scan and other test results they retreat into a side room for evaluation.

I cough and feel bad. I'm sure it's a usual human illness. At least I hope so.

Lopez hands me a handkerchief.

Finally they decide on a diagnosis and come out.

Mark looks at Lopez. "This information is protected by the medical duty of confidentiality ..."

Lopez looks at me to remind me of our deal. Or at least the part I figure out one by one. "It's okay, he may listen."

Mark explains: "The blood is coming from your esophagus, probably because you ate ground. It's not that bad. We give you a remedy to drink. I need to forbid you from doing that again."

Hmpf, of course I will do it again. There is not enough metal in human food to still the need of my Cybertronian body and ground is better for my esophagus than scrap parts with their sharp edges. Maybe I can do a while without if I don't use too much metal. But at one point the hunger is bigger than the rationality.

Mark continues with the analysis. "Furthermore your stomach is nearly completely transformed. That means it produces too less acidity to kill off foreign organisms. We assume that in this way the ground organisms of Mars came into your body, which now cause your fever. Your spleen is transformed for most parts and the rest is greatly enlarged to fight off the bacteria. We give you antibiotics and some medicine that strengthen your immune system. In a few days you'll be fine again."

I nod and I'm upset about the transformation. Stupid metal body that weakens my human side. Mark recommends me to only eat well cooked food from now on.

"This explains the current symptoms, beside that we notice more points that could become a problem in the future. Your lungs ..."

"Stop" I interrupt him. "I don't want to know."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

I'm already busy with my own problems and I don't want to be bothered with a future I don't know I will live long enough to see it. I let them give me the rest of the diagnosis written to ease them and store it on my inner system without looking at it.

"May I send the report to Megatron as it is?" he asks.

"Yes." I don't care at all.

Mark gives me a couple of medicines and orders me to stay in bed for the next couple of days. What I of course do as obedient as the people know me.

The temperature-decreasing drugs are totally unnecessary. I just activate the part of my hibernation system that controls my body temperature.

Lopez guides me out. "How could you eat ground? With all respect, that's crazy."

"That's only your point of view. The machine is hungry for metal, comparable with a human who is hungry for food."

Maybe not exactly. Humans eat daily to cover their energy need. My machine half is only hungry when I lose big amounts of metal, like in those days when the doctor unriged my jet engines.

"For machines it's completely normal to eat metal. Or ground if it contains a lot of metal."

The sand on Mars is full of ferric oxide and very tasty.

"That are the needs of the machine from which you say it was only programmed."

He doesn't say anything. I think I see how his small world view grows by the fraction of an inch.

Now I receive another radio message from Megatron who orders me to come to him. I'm not in the mood to discuss the state of my health with him.

When I step into the deposit hall I'm not alone.

"Conmother ... What are the human protoforms doing here?"

While they rush to Megatron I explain to him: "I found myself a new task and I take care for the children. I cannot leave them alone, so I brought them with me."

The remaining Cavecons climb to safety from the tiny hands.

"And how are you looking?"

I wear a train made of aluminum foil which is painted in vivid colors. On my cheek bones two magnets are sticking like a second pair of eyes. That's funny. "We're playing that I'm the alien queen leading an invasion."

My heart beats faster when they begin to climb on Megatron, but he stays calm.

"What are you, hey, that tickles."

The children take out pens and start to draw on Megatron.

I have big trouble to pull myself together to not throw myself on the ground laughing.

Megatron barks: "This is humiliating! Conmother, take them away from me, now!"

Loudly I clap my hands once. "Children, it's enough. The hostile base is conquered. Come here, we're playing hide and seek."

The children climb down.

Too late. They already decorated him colorfully with flowers and other scribblings. One of the children drew a red heart on his cheek.

"Why are they following your orders and not mine?"

"I earned their respect. By playing with them, you can do that, too."

I approach him and call to the children: "Hide in the hall. I'm coming soon to search for you." 

They're bustling around to look for good hideouts.

Megatron looks at his arms.

"You're looking pretty" I comment.

"Conmother! I look ridiculous. I'm a warlord, no flower meadow."

"True men wear pink is a common saying among humans. This honors you. If someone laughs at you I kill them for you."

I take out a piece of cloth and pretend to clean Megatron. Despite the cloth is not suitable for that color at least it calms down the Cybertronian.

He wants to discuss my medical report and I assure him that everything is alright and under my control, as usual. Also he demands that I visit him again tomorrow morning - without the children - to give me a new task.


	34. Martial Law 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra struggles to take care for Megatron's offspring.

As ordered I meet Megatron in the next morning again in the deposit hall. This time the big screen shows a map of Mars.

I'm about to ask him what task he'll give me when I hear the sharp screeching of machines coming from the middle of the hall.

Instantly I jump between and separate the two fighters, pick up Missy and Hissy each one with another hand. Both are damaged, Hissy more than Missy. I'm hurt by looking at them and I begin to repair them.

"I told you not to fight."

"They settle the hierarchy between them" Megatron explains as if I wouldn't know that. "They have the right to do that."

"Missy is bigger and stronger and wins over all of them. I know how this ends. They shall work together and not fight each other."

"Size doesn't matter, you should know that." He smirks. "At the beginning you were beaten up by the other protoforms and now see how you developed. You separate them easily."

I feel the heat rising into my face when I blush. "That's not the topic!" I don't want to be humiliated by a flower meadow.

But the Cavecons don't react. They don't have a high opinion of me anyway.

I let the two Cavecons go and silently threat them with a lifted index finger when they go away. Then I turn back to Megatron. "You've got a new task for me?"

Megatron turns to the map. I see new messages popping up at the side which he ignores. "We are too few to control Mars and to protect ourselves against armies. We need more people."

"Ehm, wait a sec. You know that the Cavecons ..."

I start to come up with an excuse, that I made the Cavecons in a cave that is shielded, so when I use Energon no radiation emits to the outside world - yes, that sounds good.

I don't want to grow a hostile army on Mars, but he interrupts me: "Quiet. Your creations are too small and weak. I will take care of that."

"But you're too weakened, this will strain your energy." Oh Megs. I don't want you to run out of energy first. Then I'm left with three uncontrolled Cons who want to kill me.

"If our species goes extinct I don't need my energy anymore. Here, take care of them."

He reaches to a place beside him I cannot see and puts a barrel with three protoforms in front of me. Ugly alien critters who with their long heads and clawed front paws remind me of dinosaurs, but the ugly ones, not the cute animated figures.

They open their mouthes and scream for metal and energon.

Despite their for human eyes gross look within me a feeling of tenderness and protective instinct awakens. One will stand, one will fall and others close up the rear. They're the future of our species.

I try to look away. "I cannot do anything for them."

Megatron notes: "On Cybertron they prospered the best when you took care of them."

"That was our home planet. Here the natural energon in the ground is missing."

"What nonsense you're saying. Your Cavecons are still alive."

"They're small and don't have any weapons, so they barely need energy." That's a convincing explanation, isn't it?

Megatron for his part doesn't add anything, only: "Just do what I told you! You're responsible for these protoforms."

I sigh and step closer to the barrel. The proto-Cons stop their screaming and direct their red optics on me. Some more steps and they start to hiss at me. Another step, still out of their range and in abhorrence of my human flesh they bend backwards while the hissing becomes louder. That's a simple personality test. That means they're build with the Decepticon nature and they feel a natural abhorrence of humans. Shit. What am I supposed to do?

"I count on you" Megatron says and returns to his map and his mental processes.

I request some Cavecons for help. Cassie and Lissy instantly join, Fuzzy needs a personal inquiry. They help me to find a transportation board and to put the barrel along with the protoforms on it, then we transport the protoforms to my home.

With some metal pieces I move closer. The protoforms watch me with distrust. I hold out my hand with the parts. One Con snaps at my hand - I blench. Then I try the same from the other side - another one snaps at me.

"How am I supposed to take care of you if you don't let me near?"

For a while I keep standing where I am with my hand hold out, not knowing what to do and I hope the protoforms will get used to me, but it doesn't happen and I get impatient.

The three Cavecons stand in a respectful distance. Cassie and Lissy are ready to help and to support me, besides it's the first time they see other protoforms. Fuzzy is without emotions.

On Cybertron it was so much easier when I could come and leave as I liked and play with them how I wanted without being responsible for them.

In the cave of Olympus Mons it was easier, too. Nobody looked what I did there, nobody saw how bad I acted in the beginning, before I figured out how to handle the Cavecons. They couldn't break anything except each other. I could transform without fearing that someone would notice my energy signature. With that bounty on my head I don't want to run around in Bot mode any longer than absolutely necessary.

The protoforms still look at me with distrust. I throw the metal pieces at them, which repel from them unnoted with pling noises.

One of them throws its head to the side and with that movement catapults a nut to the side. Then it starts to flounce and puts its paws into the faces of its siblings.

Fascinated I watch how it levers itself up. Incredible. Megatron put a lot of power into them. No wonder that lately he only hung around in the deposit hall and didn't do much beside making plans.

While I'm still wondering if it'll manage to leave the barrel, the barrel falls down by the weight of the fighting protoforms and all of them are free.

"Bring yourself to safety!" I order the Cavecons and they climb up the walls, then I bring my vulnerable legs on the kitchen table to safety.

I don't know what to do. Like cute baby animals they fuss around in the flat and scratch on the walls. One starts to gnaw on the bed.

"Hey, stop that!"

I jump down from the table and want to drag the protoform on its tail away from the bed, but before that it turns around, snaps and hisses at me.

Oh, the old disgust of my human body. That gives me an idea.

With side steps I move in a circle around the protoform, which avoids me until I stand at the bed.

"You must not gnaw on that" I say and spit onto the frame.

Without paying any attention the protoform runs into the kitchen.

"One is in the ventilation duct" Cassie announces.

"Thanks."

I rush after it into the kitchen and see a rear part disappearing into the ventilation duct. I jump to it and want to grab its tail, but it slips through my fingers. It disappears into the darkness and I hear its small steps moving through the wall.

I absolutely don't need that now.

"Cassie, follow it quietly. I'll take care of that in a while."

First I have to get the other ones under my control.

I put the barrel in front of the ventilation duct, so the next runaway won't make it so quickly.

Then I consider how to best do it and decide for the one thing I'm at least a bit good at: "Lissy, Fuzzy. Put the two to sleep."

Lissy and Fuzzy jump into the necks of the protoforms, contact their systems as I taught them and switch them off.

"Thanks."

I drag the protoforms into my wardrobe and close the door. "Take care that no-one opens the door."

I radio at Cassie and let him guide me to the escaped protoform.

Cassie guides me to another apartment, where I hear screaming and pound the tip of my tail into the control console beside the door, which instantly opens. In the kitchen before me the protoform stand on the chest of an old man, keeping its jaw closed around his arm. How unfortunate, this way I cannot just switch it off or else I couldn't open its mouth.

A woman and the grandma are standing around screaming and not knowing what to do.

I grab the next item I see - a table lamb - and hit the side of the protoform's head. This distracts it and it turns around to me, letting go of the man's arm.

I grab its tail and throw it around and against the wall, where it leaves a dent and falls to the ground.

Out of surprise it flinches and hisses, scratching over the floor covering. It tries to get up when I grab it from behind, one hand at the tail, the other one around its body. It flinches, tries to struggle free, to turn around and to bite me, but I pull it so close to me that it cannot reach me. It's heavy.

I prepare myself. It's small and weak, a heavy shock of energon from the Allspark ... but ... it's made of the same metal as I. Nobody asked if it wants to be here. Besides, it's only a baby, it doesn't know what it does. I cannot. I just cannot kill it.

I push it strongly to me, until its pointed edges sting painfully into my flesh. Tears appear in my eyes. Oh Primus, my heart breaks. This small being is innocent.

The woman is the first one running over and examines the injuries of the old man. She sends the grandma to retrieve dressing material.

I hold the protoform until it stops flinching and only hisses in anger.

The woman turns around to me. "Get this disgusting fleabag out of here."

I bow politely. "I'm very sorry. How can I make up for that?"

The protoform notices my loosened grip, starts again to hedge and hisses at the woman. I give the tail into the other hand whose arm holds the body and grab its jaw which I force closed.

The woman answers: "Throw that thing into the scrap press before it causes any more damage."

I nod as acknowledgment of receipt and carry the protoform out of the door.

I hold it this way why it mumbles in disapproval of this treatment.

I rethink the incident. Why did the protoform attack this man? Disgust of the human flesh is one thing. Then I remember how the protoform hissed, what the woman said.

"Did you hiss at the woman because she called you a disgusting fleabag?"

The hedging intensifies and the protoform tries to free its jaw and to bite my hand.

Now I see. Just like its father.

"You're the future of our species. The woman is only a human and doesn't know better."

The flouncing stops and the protoform only mumbles from time to time.

"Sorry that I bet you."

The protoform lets me carry it to my home in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually I had planned for Seldra to kill the protoforms which would have triggered a unique response from Megatron, but while writing I noticed she would never do that.


	35. Martial Law 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra gets Megatron's offspring under control. Seldra discovers the real reason for the construction.

When I return Lopez is there and irresolutely looks at the chaos. And the two Cavecons, who hang at the door of my wardrobe like giant insects and watch him. Despite you're not seeing any eyes they react to his movements.

I'm arriving in time with the protoform in my arm, followed by a third Cavecon. When seeing him the protoform starts to mumble again.

Lopez turns around to me. And freezes for a second when he sees what I'm carrying. "It's not my business, but are they from the fight with Starscream or did you confront the Big One?"

First I don't understand what he's talking about, then I remember annoyed that they think our fights are some abnormal mating ritual. "You probably consumed too many dirty pictures? No, Megatron made them with your Tachi. You should better watch her."

I retreat the two Cavecons from their watch and open the wardrobe with one hand - the protoform starts to struggle free and I quickly pull my hand back to grab it - then I look at the two sleeping Cons and decide that it's not a good idea to let them run around while Lopez is here. I expose my tail, put the one in my arms also to sleep before I lay it down to the others with some effort because of its weight.

Then I sit down in front of the wardrobe and look at them. Waiting for an idea what to do with them. I cannot continue like this. I don't have them under control. Besides, they are a danger for humans. What would be if they develop their weapons?

"If you will pardon me saying so: This looks as if they're making themselves at home."

Lopez looks at them with disgust. "They're growing a new army. We should extinguish them before they become dangerous."

Well, he's basically right. Also it would make Megatron spend more energy, either by a tantrum or by producing replacement.

But I don't feel like that. They're so helpless. I cannot do that.

But I also cannot let them run around here.

Lacking a better idea I leave them in this state and tidy up my flat a little bit, while I quickly realize I shouldn't leave Lopez alone with them in a room. On one hand he tries to convince me to kill them on the other hand after the story with Rage I have an irrational fear that they will wake up on their own. Hence I move the protoforms from the wardrobe to my sleeping place beside the door, so all parties can spend the night in peace.

When Megatron calls me to visit him in the next morning I don't think much about that when I reach the deposit hall.

"Conmother, what was that uproar yesterday about? How are the protoforms doing?"

Whoops. Probably Soundwave listened to me.

"Ehm, I, eh ..." I try to quickly think about what to answer. "I ... had problems with them. I put them to sleep."

"What? They are in development. They need input!"

Yes, I know. I lower my eyes and say nothing.

"What's the problem? On Cybertron you did well with the protoforms."

"They don't accept food from me and they wreck my flat. That's no place for them."

I don't dare to admit that I don't like to transform. On Cybertron I often had no other choice but to run around in bot mode. I transformed only for fighting and only thinking about it makes me wanna mess with someone. The claws make scratches in my floor. The ceiling is too low to stand upright. I cannot run around as a robot though my human flat.

"Besides, I'm scared that the radiation of the Allspark attracts bounty hunters if I run around in robot mode for too long." There are so many reasons why I don't want to transform.

"You should've come to me instantly."

He turns to the map and zooms in to our district. "Here, there is the workshop of the subway. It's deep enough under the ground that your radiation shouldn't reach the surface and there's enough scrap to feed them. Take them there."

At the side of the screen a notification pops up that a new message arrived. After a while another one.

He turns to me. "You don't need to worry about bounty hunters. Nobody kidnaps you while I'm here."

I look to the map. That ... really sounds reasonable. Did he make reasonable decisions before? Why did I never follow his orders?

"Look at me" he demands. "Can I count on you this time?"

"Yes, Lord Megatron."

"If not, then I give the task to someone else."

For Primus's sake, the poor children. "No, I'll do that."

"Without descendants we don't have a future. I count on you. The next time you have a problem you come to me instantly, understood?"

With those words he sends me away.

The Cavecons who wait for me at home help me to transport the switched off protoforms to the workshop. The way is long and leads me deep into the ground, where the rocks will shield my energy signature, through a labyrinth of corridors which are forsaken at the moment, because all humans are busy at the construction site.

Looking at the Cavecons I remember what I have to do.

But this time I'm doing better.

After I made sure that the door is closed and there is no way to escape, I reactivate them.

When I move closer in human mode, they start again to hiss at me. This has to change.

I transform. They seem to distrust me, as if they were looking through my disguise, but at least they let me get closer and feed them.

Megatron says they need input. I give them input.

One after the other I deal with them in simulations, teach them everything I consider important. They are stubborn.

In the simulations they attack me and show me their weapons. Secretly I dismount them and let them disappear.

When they're doing fairly well in simulations I get close to them in reality as a human. They still hiss at me. I've got a lot of work left to do and continue the training in the simulations.

Tired I look on my clock and I'm surprised how quickly the day passed by. Lopez is probably already at home.

I call him on my pad. "I send Lissy to you in a moment. Please give him the package of caffeine pills from my kitchen cupboard."

I hear his steps when he goes into the kitchen. "The whole package? One pill is enough to keep you awake for the next ten hours."

"That's the plan."

"May you allow me to say this: You should keep away from these dangerous monsters. Just leave them there."

"You're a human. You don't understand."

I hear him sighing. He knows it's of no use to argue with me.

"I won't come home today. Good night."

I hang up without waiting for an answer.

After some days - I catch up with my sleep when the protoforms mostly ignore my human body - they're ready for the next step.

They sit in a corner of the play room on the broken remains of a book shelf, as far away as possible from the human children. They tried to bring themselves into safety when the children wanted to pet them. After my education they became a bit calmer, don't attack on their own and prefer flight over fight when a human comes close. One of the protoforms visibly develops to a humanoid form. I need to check them regularly for regrowing weapons.

I explained the children that the robot-babies are not ready yet to be petted and now I'm distracting the children with play dough.

"Who can form the most beautiful dinosaur?" I put a figure as model into the center and give out green play dough.

The children, especially the young ones are rough and clumsy. The green clumps they're working on look more like abstract art than an ancient reptile, but at least they have fun.

The humanoid protoform curiously steps closer. Stops in a high safety distance and finally dares to come even closer, because the children are too busy to notice the arriving one.

Finally the protoform stands three feet behind me. I'm still the most secure port in the storm of children's hands.

I turn around to him and hold out a clump of green play dough. "Here, you wanna join?"

The protoform looks at me with red optics, somehow angry or accusing. Some children stop and look, what he does. He moves another step closer to the table, then a laser shoots from his optics onto the toy dinosaur, a high band of light, which moves from left to right over the dinosaur. He scans it.

Then he looks at the play dough in my hand. Lasers hit it and burn a perfect miniature copy of the dinosaur into the clump.

I'm so surprised that I just stare at the dinosaur in my hand. Without a word the protoform turns around and goes back to his comrades.

My world view is shattered. I thought humans would surpass Cybertronians in creativity after everything I saw until now. Creativity helps to find solutions to problems. Now I wonder, whether on the contrary creativity is unnecessary if one can already do everything perfectly. Is the creativity of humans nothing but a crutch to cope with their lacking abilities?

The look of the protoform spoke out pure contempt, as I understand now, contempt about this under-developed life form, which even after years of training doesn't reach the level of perfection a machine is built with.

A boy picks my sleeve. "May I see the dinosaur?"

I don't know what else to do with that and give it to him. With rough little hands the boy grabs the dinosaur. His fingers penetrate the play dough and damage the work of art. That doesn't bother him and he lets the dinosaur run over the table and eat play dough spheres.

As always.

One of the workers - why am I saying worker, that is a human - comes to me. "Excuse me. There is something in the blueprint which I don't understand, can you translate that for me?"

He points to his pad.

For the first time I look at the blueprint of the new core they're building. I stare at it with surprise. I see the shape of a roughly spherical construction with the remarkable comb pattern, whose support bars meet in the center. Where they meet there is a chamber, a hollow space. There's my Cybertronian name written.

I stare on it for some longer and remember the hint of Starscream. He said I would see it when I stepped into the core. Now it makes sense.

The worker starts to draw attention by making noises to remind me that he's waiting for an answer.

"Ehm ... ignore it for now. I talk about that with Megatron."

And I do it this instant.

"Megatron!"

I stomp into the deposit hall where he resides. The remaining Cavecons turn to me with less interest. I'm angry that he makes plans I'm a part of without me knowing.

"School your temper under my roof."

I ignore this command. I'm not accepting orders from a flower meadow. The anger burns inside of me and I doubt that I have enough self-control to hold back, even if I wanted to.

"What's this?" I throw the blueprint on his screen. "Why shall I become a part of the core and don't know about it?"

Like a rock in the surge he stays unimpressed and explains calmly to me: "You offered me many times to revive Cybertron with me when in return I spare the humans. That's how it will be."

"You let them build my grave!"

I transform and jump towards him. He is big, but I'm not scared. When I climb up on him he grabs my tail and lifts me like a lizard. "Forget this."

I flounce, try to swing to him, try to pull myself up to his servo, then I expose my weapons and my ridiculous bullets recoil from him with no effect.

"Let me down!"

"I let you down when you calmed down."

So he keeps letting me hanging and flouncing. The Cavecons ignore me in shame and place themselves without further action at their locations.

Finally I actually calm down and transform everything except my tail. "I will die if you lock me in the core."

Megatron puts me down and I can retract my tail, too. "There will be a door. You can step into the core, supply the planet with energon and leave the core to feed your human flesh."

Disappointed I let myself fall down to the ground. "I had hoped to find a way for you to revive your species while I can stay with the humans."

"Look around on this planet. Do you really want to live in a world where humans keep machines as slaves? You belong to us and you know it. I'm not leaving you with the humans."

Man, that's probably the nicest thing he ever said. I'm nearly touched.

"But you all are hating me. The humans accept me."

At least the most. The ones who don't know what I really am. Who am I actually fooling right now.

"Here's your chance to stay on our right side." He makes a servo movement through the room. "Your descendants already made their choice."

He bents down to me. "I don't care about the whereabouts of the humans. I can't wait to leave this planet. If that is your only worry than I resign this time to wipe them out. Not that I would have ever stressed it."

Oh Primus. He's actually ready to make peace to save his species. Why can't I jump over my shadow and admit that there's no future for me with the humans? Or is it only the energy deprivation that speaks out of him?

"Ehm, Megatron." My heart beats faster. I'm ready to trust him, to work with him for the sake of our home. "Do you know that the humans plan a rebellion?"

"They don't have weapons that would have any effect on us. Shockwave keeps all intruders out."

"No, I'm talking about ..."

Then Soundwave sends a message to all Decepticons: "Spaceship landing."

On request Soundwave adds, that it's not from Mars and it doesn't look like Earth technology either.

"These are probably bounty hunters who came for me" I state.

Megatron calls for Shockwave and moves outside. I follow him without being asked. At the air lock that leads out of the district Megatron turns around to me when I put my breathing helmet on.

"These are my opponents" I explain. "They came for me, not for you."

"I don't care. You stay here, that is an order."

"Megatron! You cannot let other people see you with your Cybertronian war painting, what will they think about us?"

I try to suppress a smirk. Oh no, I won't let you stop me.

Megatron hesitates for a second, but it doesn't weight enough to convince him.

He requests Starscream to come who shortly after appears with bluster in Jet mode and transforms.

"Take care that Conmother doesn't follow us outside."

Starscream grins and points his EMP cannon to me. "Will be done, boss."

And to me: "You know what happens when you leave your place?"

I have no other choice but to let Megatron and Shockwave go out alone.

"You could shoot me now and slack off for the rest of your watch" I suggest and prepare myself to jump. I don't know if his EMP is repaired yet and if yes, then I still have my plan to be quick and to drag him with me into a world of horror.

"Oh, good idea" he laughs and lifts his weapon a bit, ready to shoot.

My breathing frequency increases.

"Or maybe not." He relaxes and lowers the weapon a bit, still ready to shoot.

I'm confused.

"Or maybe yes?" He brings himself in position.

"You're such a dick." Got it, he's just playing with me again.

Through the glass of the dome outside I see in the distance how the space ship of the bounty hunters burst out in flames.

When Starscream is sure that I don't dare to escape in an act of mercy he retreats the cannon.

"It must be hard to be such a weakling that Megatron doesn't even allow you to watch his fight." He starts to tease me again. "I cannot imagine how it is. Tell me."

"Hm." I grin. "You're not watching, either."

Suddenly I hear the known noise, scream in affect: "EMP!", radio it to all Decepticons and because I lack a better option I throw myself to the ground, hands above my head, to prepare for the impact. Which doesn't come. Beside a slight cold like a breeze under the door nothing happens. I keep lying for some seconds that feel like minutes.

Wondering I look around. Starscream took his Jet mode and doesn't move. I stare at him not comprehending. I send wireless messages to all of them, but nobody answers.

Until some heavily armed soldiers come to me. "You are arrested for some heavy crimes. Do not resist."

I let them leave me away.


	36. Aftermath 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra is thrown to prison and put to trial.

They put me to a prison cell which is shielded. There I have to wait. And wait, without noticing what happens outside. I didn't even notice what happened at all, but I assume that the martial law is over and the usual everyday life returned.

I don't know what to think. The Decepticons aren't evil. They just want to go home. But now they lie lifeless on this planet as before. No, wait a second, not all of them.

"May I visit Rage?" I ask on of the guards.

"No."

"Please, he is not like the others. He's alive. He dies if no one takes care of him."

"So what?"

"He's partly biological. He feels pain. Do you want to let him starve? You acknowledge that something biological with nervous cells feels harm, don't you?"

I cannot accept that. What am I without my favorite arch enemy who didn't want anything else but to help his species? He is as much affected as the other Cons, but I assume that his brain is still active, as my one is. If no one takes care of him he has to starve. What a cruel and unworthy death to dissolve itself while full conscious.

Some days later actually some people visit me in my cell. "You need to answer some of our questions about this Rage-thing."

"As I already told you: The Decepticons experiment with the connection between biological organs and space ships. Rage is a prototype."

"Whose brain is that?"

"His own."

"Is it human?"

"Did you analyze his DNA?"

They exchange short disputing glances. "We would like to hear your version."

Maybe they didn't, because they don't dare to open his vessel. "No, it's not human or from any other species. It's just a highly developed brain."

"How would that be possible? It needs to come from somewhere."

Oh my, I touch my forehead. Humans can be so straining sometimes. "Look, you take a DNA string and code the brain on it, okay? That's as if you write a computer program in an existing programming language. The program also comes from nowhere."

"But what you're saying is that the new program looks exactly like one that already exists. That cannot be a coincidence."

"I never claimed that."

I have no idea how exactly they did it, but surely it was no chance. Reverse engineering or something.

Finally they agree that we visit Rage together.

We step into Rage where we take off our helmets and go to the black pillow in the middle of his huge command center. I know that his brain flows in that, but currently the covers are in place.

"We tried to communicate with it, but our energon absorbers probably left it unable to move. We don't dare to open the vessel. We don't know how to keep the brain alive or how to examine it."

"Let me speak alone with him."

"We would rather be present."

"He doesn't trust you. Look, humans and Cybertronians have a long history full of tension between each other. He knows me. Let me speak to him confidentially."

The people look at each other. Probably asking themselves if that's a good idea or if I try to escape with him, but they know that they rendered him unable to move.

"Well then."

I wait until they're outside. Then I smirk at him. "Oh Rage, you're so pathetic. Probably you're the most intelligent being in the universe with the most intelligent thoughts. Too bad you don't speak and nobody listens to you, neither humans nor Decepticons."

I wait for a reaction, but Rage stays silent.

"I always respected you, you know. I even got a picture of you hanging in my flat."

He makes a pause for reflection and says nothing.

"Rage: Guess what's in this hand." I hold a fist out to him.

Silence.

"Hm, that's right. Okay, one more time." I pretend to do something behind my back, before I hold a fist to him again.

He doesn't make any noise.

"Hm, that's correct again. Okay, now it's harder. What's in my hand?" I fiddle around behind my back a bit longer.

In the distance I hear quiet steps. I guess that are the people outside the door who get bored.

"Damn, you're good. Okay, how about this. Do you know the lyrics of the song 'Silence'?"

Nothing is to be heard.

"And what are the famous opening word from Holly in the movie 'The Piano'?"

Only silence.

"Oh, and then someone shall say again that Decepticons were not interested in human culture."

Rage is the only one who stays calm, no matter how much nonsense I'm telling. Only rarely I manage it to make him react.

"Megatron is not very talkative. You're the only one who let's me finish speaking. Oh, you mustn't ask me that. No, and if then I wouldn't be allowed to tell you. Here, I thought you were hungry, so I brought a sandwich for you. I hope you like it, because I made it myself and I think the combination isn't very well chosen. What kind of diet would that be where you're not allowed to eat tuna imitation and fake mayo? Oh ..."

Rage opens a small hatch at the pillow in which his brain is floating. Skeptically I look at the opening.

"Oops. The humans said you were unable to move. Probably you control the hatch with your brain, not with the technology, hm?"

Is this an invitation to throw the sandwich into it? I somehow expected that he feeds on nutrient solution. Too bad I was never present when he was fed.

Slowly I bring the sandwich to the opening and push it in.

The opening closes. Then quickly it opens. The sandwich shoots out and splashes into my face.

A bit abashed I wipe mayonnaise out of my face. Okay, I deserve this.

Then the opening opens once more, this time a lot smaller and a funnel opened to the top pushes itself out. I guess he wants to drink now, but I'm skeptical. I pour some water from my bottle into it.

"Here's to you, my old arch-enemy" I say and bump my bottle against the funnel.

The water squirts in a thin stream into my face. That isn't funny anymore.

"Are you just teasing me or do you want to tell me something?"

I wipe the water off my face. At least I'm clean again.

The funnel stays where it is, exposed and waiting.

I remember that he has just a brain, but no intestines. Of course: He cannot digest the sandwich.

"Ah, you're feeding on nutrient solution." I laugh. "Why didn't you say so sooner."

I get up and go before the door to the people.

They ask: "And? What did it say?"

I laugh. "Ha ha, but it doesn't speak. It only has a brain, but no vocal chords."

They wait tactfully until I'm done with laughing, then I ask: "Did you find anything special on the ship, like tanks with liquids?"

"Yes, over there."

They show me a storage room with canisters and I find out how to feed Rage without the food coming back at me.

Soon Lopez visits me in the prison. Finally, I was wondering where he was. He's always there when humans cause me problems. He stops before my cell and switches on the inter phone.

"I hope you came to enlighten me about all that" I begin and lift myself up from the camp bed. "For weeks I'm waiting here and nobody tells me why I'm kept here."

"You're half Martian, but for the other half the guidelines about importing alien technology applies. It's not meant to enlighten a technology about the details. Because of obvious reasons."

"Sounds like a bad joke."

"Your status is public now. We cannot just hush down the matter. You need to face a public process to rate dangerousness."

"You know Mars is a beautiful planet, a glory for the solar system. But the bureaucratic stuff is unacceptable."

He smiles. My compliment about Mars flatters him and weights up the complaint. "Mars is not bureaucratic, only well organized. Everything here is in order. You have trouble, because you don't fit into the provided processes."

"Oh, yeah? Then why didn't you use your weapon earlier? Did you have to file a form for that first?"

He rolls his eyes. "Not everything is as easy as you think."

He turns to leave. "We meet again on your trial."

The day of my court trial comes or whatever is the correct term for that process. In my shielded cell I couldn't look that one up. Four guards pick me up and escort me to the court-house.

In front of the building a crowd has gathered. That's what I think in the first moment. When the guards bring me through the people into the building the corridor is full of people as well. They're all waiting for their turn, because everyone thinks they can add something to the trial. Many of them have their pads out and ready. My trial is public, but because the interest is bigger than the space in the hall, the trial is streamed into the net.

They take me into the courtroom, which is so crowded with the audience that most people stand in the back behind the seats. I look into the faces and search for people I know. Unlikely. Most of the ones I know wait outside to be heard as witnesses.

On my way through the gangway I spot Mark and Carla in an area separated from the rest of the audience, together with other people I don't know. No, wait, I saw a few before, in the holo-conference. They are scientist from other research facilities.

I am brought to my own area where the guards keep standing around me. The judge looks at me with discomfort.

The trial is opened. "I welcome you to this process about the dangerousness evaluation of alien technology."

The judge cites some paragraphs he refers to and explains the process. Sometimes it's necessary that a technology that already circulates is reviewed by surveyors - in this case that is the task of the researchers - along with that they collect feedback from the population to get a complete picture.

He looks at me again with that discomfort. "In this case the technology is the integrated battle armor of the present Seldra Sadrkhor. In this process it's not meant that the technology which usually is an object gets a defense council or has its own saying. So I have to request you to hold back. I'm sorry about this."

I swear. If the court decides that I have to be destroyed. Then they will all die. Except Carla and Mark if I can arrange that. But my humanitarianism has its boundaries. This monster of bureaucracies, this spawn of Unicron needs to be destroyed.

The first witness is brought into the room. They introduce him as representative of the people database on Ceres. "We found this fake identity in our datasets." He takes out his pad and throws the data onto the big screen.

One of the researchers asks: "How do you know it's fake?"

"We checked the name and birth date against the data from Earth. This data set doesn't exist there."

He throws a few more data in.

The judge summarizes: "Faking documents. Faking identity. Faking records. Traveling with faked documents."

I sigh quietly. I admit it, I did that. It's not bad. Nobody got harmed and I had no choice. They needn't to make a big deal out of that.

The man is dismissed and leaves the room.

The next witness is called. I recognize the symbol of the Mars navy on his uniform.

"The accused ..."

"Objection."

"The object of inspection?"

Now I say: "Objection. Just call me Seldra. I have the name for good reasons."

"Rejected" the judge says. "Witness, please continue."

But the witness heard me. "Seldra caused a ten hour power outage on the Donnager. In that time we couldn't do our work."

Again an interposed question from the surveyor ranks: "How do you know Seldra did it?"

"Because at the same time of the outage Seldra and our jolly-boat the Bug disappeared. The Bug was found weeks later on Phobos with burned-out electronics."

"Hey, Lopez threatened to shoot me dead."

"Silence please. I requested you to be quiet."

"I had a good reason for my deed, doesn't that count?"

The judge sighs. "Usually the technologies we treat are items that don't act out of any reasons. It doesn't matter why a machine does something, only what they do counts."

Annoyed I roll my eyes. "I don't agree with the working if this trial."

"Rejected." He summarizes: "Causing a ten hour power outage on the Donnager including loss of work and health consequences. Theft and destruction of a jolly-boat. The next witness, please."

A woman steps in. Because of her yellowish skin I assume a Martian.

"This hit the western deposit." She shares pictures that shows wreckages within destroyed containers.

When asked what I have to do with that they show the time points of my escape from the Donnager and my appearance on surveillance videos shortly after the incident.

"Destruction of a research satellite" the judge enumerates. "Illegal entering. Damage of property."

I illegally entered a planet without any vehicle. I should get a medal for that. Nobody else will do this ever again. At least no human.

The next witness I know from the authority where I got arrested. She shows the correspondence which proves my try to apply for a business and the money transfers to a bank account I have full permission to.

"Hey, I was in prison for moonlighting. That doesn't count anymore."

"Quiet please. We're judging the dangerousness."

I'm angry. This is totally ridiculous.

"Illegal stay. Moonlighting" the judge summarizes.

Next a man steps in. Oh shit, I recognize him. He has a bone to pick with me.

"I was a customer for her simulations."

"Simulations due to lacking conclusiveness are not accepted as evidence. Dismiss."

Oh.

"But ... But ..."

The disappointed man is sent away. At least in this point they're fair. Anyone could come and claim I had done anything in a simulation. Or that their psychic problems have something to do with my simulations. It's almost too bad that again I don't hear what he has seen back then.

A woman steps in. I guess she is a guard in the quarry.

"In the quarry she caused a flood and killed one of the workers with a rock."

I throw in: "That was an accident due to insufficient safety measures. I raise countercharge."

The judge looks into his documents. "Rejected. You already received compensation for that incident."

"What? I thought that was the welcome money to my immigration."

"Aren't you reading what you're singing?"

"Nah, who does that."

I receive another disapproving head shake.

When a researcher asks how they know that I caused the accident they show pictures of the tunnel where I worked and where you see the scratches of my claws all over, the tunnel which is hardly reachable for humans. A three dimensional model of the cave shows the complete crack till the place of the accident. Statements of workers say that I stayed in that tunnel most of the time. There's no denying.

"Espionage of research technology in the name of the aliens." A man of another authority brought documents that show that I worked for the research facility without proper qualification.

"I cannot spy on that!" I throw in. "All of that already belongs to us ... the Cybertronians."

"According to the legal standards of Mars these technologies are property of Mars."

"According to Cybertronian standards they're still Cybertronian technologies."

"Cybertronian laws are not respected by Mars. Quiet now!"

I grab my forehead in strain. How many witnesses do they have left? Where is Lopez? I expected that he would represent my crimes on the Donnager. Maybe he has something to throw in from the things I told him in confidence. No idea what else I told him and what of that he can use against me. Most and for all I doubt that this still plays a role.

"Theft of 15 drones."

"Seldra brought 4 alien battle robots to Mars and activated them."

"She helped the robots to conquer Mars and to keep the occupation."

"She put down a loaded weapon and left it unsupervised."

"I didn't know how to unload it" I throw in and I am ignored.

"Violation of usual customs, sodomy with alien items."

I am indignant. "That's not true. There's no proof for that!"

Yes, there is. They show one of the pictures I generated and that looks like real. I facepalm with both hands. That must be a bad joke.

I want to contradict and to say that the picture is fake ... But when I think about it I better not do this. I shut my mouth.

A woman says I wanted to feed her baby to the Big Robot.

"One of her monsters attacked and injured our grandpa." Okay, that's ... true.

Finally Lopez steps in. I waited so long for this moment. Now he has the unique chance to spank me on live TV. Although I don't know what he could say that weight up my other "crimes". Let's think. No one yet said that I destroyed his pad.

When he enters the witness box I wish he would stab the dagger into my chest as a sign that everything was a trick, that I shouldn't have trusted him in the first place. I wish to hate him representative for all humans. Then I don't care how the trial ends and I return to go on my own way. My small trip back to the humans is over. Megatron was right. I eat his words and leave the world of the humans where I have no business left.

He opens the mouth. "I appeal to the law that states that found alien technology belongs to Mars. I'm the first one who recognized the alien origin of this so-called battle armor of Seldra. Hence this technology, the responsibility for it and the right of determination belongs to me."

The judge checks his documents. "So the decision of the court over the whereabout of this technology is overcome. The hearing of evidence is closed. We now retreat to the final dangerousness evaluation."

I drop my jaw. He didn't really do that, did he? Did he?? I'm now Lopez's property? Holy Primus!

Lopez leaves the room without another look.

After half an hour of break the surveyors and the judge return. Carla throws me a short, nearly apologizing glance.

He summarizes my abilities that could be a danger for Mars and its inhabitants. They evaluate my dangerousness with 58/100 points.

I don't know if I should be flattered or insulted. I imagine how it would be to show the Decepticons: Look, the humans consider me dangerous. On the other hand with the Allspark I could do so much more damage. Everything here is full of Cybertronian technology. If I would release the power of the Allspark an army of Decepticons would rise who would kill all humans. Including me. If I had wanted that I could have spared me a long way. I think this score doesn't reflect my true potential.

Besides they announce that Lopez as the new owner has to take responsibility for my crimes. Whatever that means. Probably there is an evil plan behind that to use my technology for himself so it's worth the effort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I've got a summary of my story IN my story.


	37. Aftermath 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seldra visits the Decepticons for the last time and leaves Mars to return to Earth.

Outside of the courtroom - still shocked from what I just heard and not able to understand a thing - I meet Lopez in a quiet corner. He awaits me and looks up from his pad when I come close.

I ask: "What's that going to. Am I your toy now?" I grin. "And I thought I would know your preferences."

He answers dryly: "I just officially transmitted my property claims on your technology to you. You are free."

He shows me the respective document on his pad.

Again I'm standing there speechless. Did he really say that? He just lets me go? But why? I ... I cannot believe that a human like him for whom other humans are worth less just because they were born on another planet would do such a thing for me. Out of gratitude I want to shake his hand - no wait, kiss his feet. But I don't.

After I made sure that I regained full control over my face I play over my reaction: "Ah, of course no one wants to have something as annoying as me."

But the feeling of happiness and gratitude floods over me and I feel my facade crumbling. Oh Primus, why did he do that. For eternity I'm indepted to him. Ah, forget about it.

I give him my hand. "Thanks. How can I ever make this up to you."

"It's as you said the best for Mars. Besides, with the property claims also the claims for compensation were transferred to you. I hope you don't mind too much."

"If that's all to it." It's just money. Human money. "How much is it?"

He shows me the sum on his pad.

I'm feeling bad. To work off the dept I would need to work more than 8000 years for that. The satellite is enough to break my neck. "Don't worry. I probably saved enough to pay half of the first rate."

Lopez rolls his eyes.

When is this day finally over. I really need to go home and relax.

Lopez says goodbye to me. "Let me know if I can do anything else for you."

I take one day to visit the new Cybertronian museum that opened in the district. I've already visited this place a lot - the museum was opened in the construct that should've become the new core of Cybertron. Instead of pulling it down and because they didn't know where to take the Decepticons - their technologies were already researched - someone got the great idea to combine these things with each other.

Because the core was build outside of the district they build a small, separate dome around it, which is connected by a glass tunnel to the main part of the district. I step into the inside of the sphere over stairs. Although the entrance is for free the museum is sparsely visited. Maybe it's because it's before noon under the week, however, the reviews in the net say that there's not much to see. Some museum staff take care of order and orientation, probably they also take care that no one steals the robots. But who would do that beside me? They greet me friendly with my name and point to the next stairs that lead to the round.

The Decepticons in their disguise modes which they transformed to on my shouting were placed onto the support bars, so the facility looks more like a strange vehicle museum.

First I pass Soundwave who looks like a Martian satellite. They could have put a common satellite here and no one would see a difference. Only the radioactive emission and the structure of his electronics would debunk what he really is. And the information sign of course.

It's surprisingly cold. I start to shiver.

Then: Shockwave who took the form of an alien tank. It reminds me of a science-fiction movie, something a human had come up with, hence nothing special.

I get to the highlight of the exhibition, the inner part of the core and step into the room that would've become my new home. Here the monument stands which I made for Megatron, nearly the only exhibit that looks like its origin. Megatron looks frightening and impressive, I've done great work with that one. Laughingly it's the only fake piece.

Around him the three protoforms are grouped who didn't learn to disguise themselves. With the help of sticks they were draped in interesting poses. One crouches ready to jump, one rears up, one jumps to the side.

Out again on the next level I find Starscream, the jet with Cybertronian symbols, epically placed on the level below Megatron, again damned to be the second in hierarchy until eternity. I smirk.

In the museum there's not a single Cavecon. I trained them so well that nobody finds them, not even me, especially not after the weeks that passed by. That's sad.

Then I reach the highest level which was evened out a lot due to the inclination of the bar. Here Megatron stands, again a jet. Like so often in recent days I look up to him and feel small in front of his strength. It's strange to see him so still. He's still painted with the flowers and butterflies.

I step closer, grab into my top and put a white rose into the opening of his cannon. The next standing museum worker sees it, but doesn't say anything.

When I turn around to leave he says to me: "Have you been above?" He points to other stars that lead to Megatron's pilot cab. "In the cab there hangs a picture. We don't know what it shows, probably this museum, so we just left it there. Maybe you can tell us what it is."

Why not. I climb up to it and find the picture hanging at the control console. The picture was scribbled by a child I see instantly, no wonder the others don't see anything. It shows a sphere with the remarkable comb pattern and small angled figures on it. In the center of the sphere a cyan rectangle is glowing. That's a picture of Cybertron.

I don't know who gave it to him or when. Obviously one of the children drew the fulfillment of Megatron's biggest wish, namely the return of the Cybertronians to an intact Cybertron. The picture meant enough to Megatron that he kept it.

But now he's here, as good as dead, Cybertron is hopelessly decayed and nobody else can do anything against that. I feel bad and climb down the stairs.

The museum worker looks at me irritated and asks: "What's the matter? What's on the picture?"

"I don't know."

"So why do you look so sad?"

"It's so incredibly ugly."

I let him standing there in confusion and leave.

I sigh when an another error message appears in the picture instead of redirecting me forward and I work myself backwards. Wirelessly with my internal system I access the authority that approves trips to Earth, but although my machine parts process everything in high speed I'm delayed for hours by my lack of understanding the bureaucratic processes.

Maybe I should just hack my trip to Earth into the system. But after my abilities became publicly known and after my conviction I don't really dare to break the rules. What shall I do?

I'm leaning back to think. Surely there is any solution. Then I get an idea: I'm calling an old friend and ask for advice.

Likewise over my inner system I call my former pad which is now a property of Lopez. Doing so I cannot resist and when I add the caller manually to the data stream I send a picture of me in bot mode and as name "Dark Ninja Alien Bot Mother". I chuckle in joy. It's nice to have the freedom to be oneself.

Lopez answers unimpressed. "What can I do for you?"

"Excuse me for disturbing, maybe this is a dumb question, but how can I book a trip to Earth? I have to give a reason, either private or business. If I pick business, the systems asks for the identification number of my employer, which is not accepted, maybe the research facility has no official status I assume? When I pick private, the system asks scrupulously precise for all planned travel destinations and directly wants to book sights and hotels as well. Probably I will immediately be declared lost when I leave the route? I just want to move freely."

Beside that I don't want to tell the system where I'm planning to go.

Surprisingly my depts doesn't seem to be the problem. Nobody urges me to pay them, which I couldn't do anyway. It's just a number somewhere in the system which I can ignore. The mills of bureaucracy grind slowly.

Lopez explains with patience: "You can neither apply for holidays on Earth nor travel for business, because through the trial and the change of your status you're not employed anymore. I take care of that. Can I do anything else for you?"

"That's all. Thanks in advance."

I disconnect. Then I'm looking forward to how he will handle this and if there's a simple solution I just overlook. I still don't understand the complicated bureaucratic system of Mars. How embarrassing.

Some days later Lopez calls me back. He sends me some documents which I look through with interest. Looks like he chose another loophole to enable me the trip to Earth. Why didn't I think of this?

"We got you a limited position on Earth. We want you to go into hiding for a while."

"Ah, and when an alien bounty hunter shows up you prefer them destroying Earth, don't you? You're a smart cookie."

I hear him sighing. When I hear nothing else I ask: "What kind of job is this?"

"In a software company. You will get along greatly."

"Shall I spy for you on Earth? Shall I bring you new technologies?"

I hear him smile sarcastically. "Please don't."

Grinning I think back to the few times I did exactly that. I couldn't afford another time anyway.

Finally he says: "I will come over to take you to the departure" before he hangs up.

Lopez accompanies me to the space harbor, but I barely notice him. I jump around like a small child and grin over my ears.

"I'm so happy. Finally I come back home. After more than 300 years."

I will visit my homeland, looking for the traces I've left. I will swim in the ocean, this time for real. And I will finally eat a real burger again.

Oh, there are so many beautiful things to be done on Earth which cannot be substituted by my simulations.

I will look what happened to Optimus and the Autobots. If they still are on Earth.

I will download my favorite annoy-songs in original quality. Let's see how close my reconstructions come to the original. On Cybertron I had to put in much effort to reconstruct them, create them mechanically, compare them with my memory, change them, compare again, everything to annoy the Cons as they deserved.

Oh, and of course I will collect a lot of inspiration for new simulations. I cannot wait.

I turn to Lopez. "You're probably glad that I depart, aren't you?"

I continue without letting him speak. "I imagine how you soon will sigh out loud and say: Finally she's gone. Correct or am I right?"

Lopez just answers: "No comment."

"Finally you can go back to your work and manipulate someone else and drag information out of them."

"Tz, tz" he makes scolding and I grin, because I like the noise. He's so cute when he scolds me. "You made me send erotic pictures to our government."

"Oh, come on, for once you could show who you really are."

"May I remind you that we had a deal. I help you with the formalities and some decisions and you tell me the complete story including all details. You told me everything ..."

He stops and looks deep into my eyes. What's going on, did I show a suspicious reaction?

"Or didn't you?" He sighs. "Whatever. I consider our deal as fulfilled. Good bye."

He smiles charming and spreads his arms to offer me a goodbye hug.

I decline flustered. "Ehm, thanks, but that's too real for me."

He's a bit irritated, but then he puts his smile back on and offers me his hand instead.

I don't pay attention to the sparkling in his eyes and take his hand.

He drags me close to himself, directly into his arms. Surprised I make a short squeaking noise and give up any defense.

His embrace is like heaven, a gentle prison that I don't want to leave. He feels so good. Hesitating I reciprocate the hug and grab his back. Rest my chin on his shoulder, smell his manly antiperspirant. I will cherish this moment forever and relive it in my most beautiful simulations.

He whispers into my ear. "I wish you that you find another man on Earth, one you like and who's better than me."

He lets go of me. Still half caught from the experience I stand there and find his words so far away and unrealistic. "I'm half a machine. How do you imagine that?"

"You'll surely find a way."

When I would get children, they would be Decepticons, who destroyed Earth. He should know that. Wait, no, he doesn't know where the Cavecons really came from. I want to leave it like that.

Besides, the transformation continues. What, when I'm currently ... Also my spark emits radioactivity. I cannot bear the risk. I don't belong to them anymore. I cannot return to the humans and live among them as if nothing happened. I cannot have a normal life. No man and no children.

But ... nothing of that matters anymore. I nod thankfully as response.

"Good bye."

Finally I start my trip to Earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now what happens next? Will Seldra destroy Mars to get rid of her dept? Will she sell the Allspark to pay it off? See it in the next episode …


	38. Bonus Material - Deleted Scenes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * Food on Cybertron  
Seldra tells Lopez some nonsense. Is not relevant for the main story and didn't fit into it.
>   * Megatron in the Simulation  
In one of the flashbacks there is a scene where Seldra lures Megatron into an empty hall and kidnaps him into a simulation. But I decided that some humans who do things and one is called "Megs" doesn't qualify for a "fanfiction". Anyway, here is a small impression of what happens in the simulation.
>   * Lopez's search for a place to sleep  
Seldra uses the Cavecons to spy after Lopez. Gives some insights into the perception of the Cavecons, but is irrelevant for the events to come.
>   * Barricade  
In my first draft Seldra collected five Decepticons in the belt. Then I realized that Barricade's presence is completely irrelevant and it was exhausting to consider him all the time, so I threw him out. I consider the Cavecons in the last part unnecessary as well, but I cannot make them leave in a logical way, so I just note them a few times.
>   * Bounty Hunter 2 - Betting Office  
Originally I planned that Seldra convinces Megatron to leave one of the bounty hunters alive for her to fight. Their fight is broadcasted in the district as a huge event - Seldra gets spanked on live TV to distract the Cons from the rebels. But then I saw no reason why Megatron would agree to this, so I greatly shortened the part with the bounty hunters.
>   * Seldra steals the Museum  
Seldra and one of her unusual solutions. For the sequel I never wrote.

### Food on Cybertron

"Oh, Cybertron is known for its diversified and for all beings digestible cuisine. My favorite is the Cybertronian nail rust soup, a famous specialty. If you ever visit Cybertron you have to try screw balls with nut sauce. And cog cake with energon taste, baked in a traditional cog tin. It is said that the shape makes the dish easier digestible."

Lopez asks: "Is there any word true you're saying?"

I reply: "If you would know that machines have zero creativity - and you should know - then you would clearly spot this as satire."

"So what did you really eat?"

Instead of an answer I'm overcome by the vivid memory. I escape with one hand over my mouth and puke into the next corner.

"Sorry" I mumble and wipe over my mouth. "That's not relevant for you. I don't want to talk about that."

"No, I just ask out of personal interest. Of course you don't have to answer, but I would really appreciate it if you would simply say so instead of making something up."

### Megatron in the Simulation

I stood in the kitchen unit of the apartment and stirred in a big pan. The smell of scrambled eggs and fried bacon filled the air with a delicious smell. The morning sun shined inviting through the big windows on the right side behind me and enlightened the living room with the couch and the TV. In this moment two freshly roasted toasts jumped out of the toaster, when I heard how the bedroom door opened. It was Megatron - here better called "Megs". I had given him the body of an athletic, big man with short hair, that suited him well.

"What kind of nonsense is this? Bring me back this instant."

"Then I am ..."

His loud stomping steps warned me. I switched off the stove and turned around with raised hands. Megs looked at his own hands as if not sure what to do with them, then he decided for a grip to my throat. I was too late to escape. "You bring me back now, do you understand, this instant!"

I couldn't breath and kicked his soft parts.

He sank convulsing to the ground. "What in Unicron's name ..."

I breathed the sweet air and coughed. "That's called pain. You might be stronger than me, but you have a weak spot."

Megs was even stronger than I thought. He picked himself up. With one hand he held his aching genitals, with the other one he pulled a big kitchen knife out of the knife block.

"Hey, now you're overreacting!" I ran into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. "If you kill me you'll never get back."

"I don't believe a word you're saying."

I sighed. "Okay, I don't know what happens if you kill me, but surely you won't get back."

"Open the door!"

"Nope. Put the knife away. I stay here until you calmed down."

He upbraided, but he was too inexperienced as a human and didn't know how to open the door and the knife was useless at the moment.

I waited. I heard how he sat down in front of the door.

After a while he said: "What's with this body? It burns inside of me."

I explained: "That's hunger. Try some of the bacon, that helps."

"You're really weak and under-developed creatures."

I waited until his hunger was big enough so he really got up and clumsily burned his hands on the hot pan with curses.

"At the wall there hangs a spatula. Right beside the stove the plates are ready to use. Cutlery is in the drawer left beside the stove."

I heard him scratching in the pan with the spatula and I cringed - that poor non-stick coating. He grossly ripped out the cutlery drawer, shortly after I heard him scratch in the pan with a fork and rubbed my face. Then I heard a slice of crunchy bacon splash on the tiles and sighed. Patience, patience I told myself.

Finally I heard him chewing. "That ... tastes good."

Bacon - The tool of peace. I wondered how tasty Megs considered it when he found out how we produced it.

Slowly I opened the bathroom door and came out. Megs stood relaxed in the kitchen and ate bacon with his hands. "Doesn't it? It goes well with a glass of tasty orange juice." I rushed to the kitchen and poured him a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator and passed it to him.

He looked at me in disapproval. Then he grabbed the glass with greasy fingers. "The amount of your punishment is up to you. You'll get everything back when we return to Cybertron. Don't you play this too far."

When he drank I looked into the pan. "You ate all the bacon on your own? I wanted to have some as well."

"Then make yourself some more."

"That was the whole package, I don't have any more!" Theatrically I let my head hanging. "You're so mean."

### Lopez's search for a place to sleep

When the evening draws close and the humans get so tired that they work slowly and make mistakes all the time I can convince the Cons to dismiss them into after work. The humans go home. Then I remember that Lopez is not from this district. Where else does he go?

I contact the Cavecons. Mitzy spots him in a street and I receive pictures to ensure that it is him. "Pictures" might be the wrong term. As white areas they show surfaces that reflect sound. That's enough to recognize Lopez.

He steps into a hotel, a place for tourists. As well as apartments on Mars are assigned by the government, so tourists find their places to sleep.

In the only hotel of the small district there is already Izzy and hides. Judging by the high position he is some decoration object.

Izzy now transmits his pictures to me. The hotel is crowded with people, who are probably stranded in the district. They already occupied couches and chairs in the lobby as sleeping places.

Lopez looks around. Hesitates. Probably he considers if it's worth to ask. Then he steps to the reception.

Now I request Izzy to transmit the sound from his direction.

The boy from the reception just apologizes. "I'm really sorry, but we have absolutely no place left at all. We already overcrowded our few rooms and and distributed blankets to the people in the lobby. If you want to sleep here somewhere on the ground we won't stop you, but I cannot do anything for you."

The spoiled luxury child from Mars of course doesn't sleep on the ground.

Izzy's hearing is so good that I hear through him how Lopez takes out his pad. It's as if I could hear how each single gouge of his fingertips touches the glass in high succession. How interesting.

"I'm a high-ranked member of the Mars navy and I work for the government. Could you arrange something for me?"

I laugh amused. That reminds me of spme movie which I once had seen. A family on holidays found a fugitive boy, I don't remember exactly, but the father drew his police card all the time. "Are you hiding a boy here?" "No, I'm a police man." "We have to scan your flat." "Oh, so we are coworkers, I'm a police man, too." "Do you have the permission of the parents, that the boy is allowed to travel with you?" "That's not necessary, because I'm a police man." Funny, Lopez the police man.

Oh, I was paying only half the attention. The boy at the reception apologized again and said that first he cannot verify the identity of Lopez, because their communication with the outside is cut off and second he cannot do anything for him anyway. He would have to threw two, three other people out of their room to make space for Lopez. "With your privilege I'm sure you'll get a place to sleep somewhere else."

I burst out in laughter. That's what I call best entertainment, much better than this "Lovin' Ares" stuff. Well. For the Cybertronian style there's always a place to sleep. He will get along eventually. Now enough with the spying.

I thank both Cons - what they accept in silence - and close the connection.

### Barricade

I grin at my new victim: "So, nobody wants to accompany you?"

"Here we go again."

"Barricade, you're so aggressive. Are you a spawn of Megatron?" Too bad it's not part of our deal to not be annoying.

"I kill you!"

"Silence!" Now it's Megatron who glares at us in anger. "Nobody kills Conmother as long as she carries the Allspark within her!"

"Oh Megs, that's the nicest thing you ever said."

"Shut up and don't call me like this!"

"And the nicest thing you will ever say." I see how he starts to regret our deal. Tantrums cost energy. He is not aware how important it is to me to stay true to our deal. "Today you're lucky, Barricade. I take care that you don't end up like Lockdown." I nod to the outside where you can see the dark shape of his ship lying.

Barricade sticks his head through the door. "Conmother, why do you not response when I call you?"

"Oh, I didn't hear you, I was just busy."

A child calls: "We fought back an alien invasion!"

"What?"

I startle and then I throw in: "Exactly, we banished the aliens to the moon, you see? Show him the picture."

The kids hold up the picture from the moon which we drew together, which is crowded by s-shaped aliens. "We are saved, everything is alright again" I add with a smile.

"You are not to be beared with." Barricade retreats annoyed to the outside.

Phew.

A little boy with a toy figure in the other hand pulls my sleeve and wants to whisper something into my ear. "May I hug the police car?"

"No, the police car is not to be befriended", I explain. "The police car is not prepared for the power of friendship."

Barricade is too dangerous for children. I'm still working on finding out his weakness.

With interest Barricade looks at the small Cavecon, who turns to him, paying him attention. And the others that leave in different directions. "Why did I only get one?" he complains. I take that as a positive sign.

Should I answer diplomatically? Facing the circumstances I make an exception and decide in its favor. "Because you're with me all the time and I also only got two. Together we have three." The truth is: It's a question of sympathy. Megatron's group consists of five Cavecons who could not be convinced to change to someone else. Fuzzy, Barricade's Cavecon, doesn't care about anything. Nobody likes Barricade.

Now Starscream sends to Barricade: "What are you doing? You were supposed to take care that Conmother doesn't make any nonsense."

"I'm taking care. You gave her permission to this nonsense."

Barricade rolls his optical sensors in annoyance and sighs: "At least I was spared."

"Because nobody likes you enough to mate with you. Not even I have enough fantasy for that."

"I kick your ass!"

"Come here, go ahead." I take a pose ready to fight. Who knows, maybe I can make him to consume his energy before the time.

Our Cavecons go to a respectful distance.

But too bad I had gained enough respect that Barricade refrains.

### Bounty Hunters 2 - Betting Office

The betting office is crowded with people. On Mars people prefer to earn their money by work, but my fight is an extraordinary event that gathers people, a welcome distraction to the anxiety the occupants cause. So they also take the chance to make their bets personally in the betting office, to discuss the fight with other people.

The quotas are relatively even, 2:3 for me, 1:3 for the bounty hunter.

"1000 Credits on Seldra."

"I put 500 on Seldra."

"No way, 100 on the bounty hunter."

Unbelievable. If they knew my stats in the arena it would look totally different.

A man just put his bet and wants to retreat. While turning around he spots me and stares at me. Others wonder what stopped him and spot me. All heads turn to me and it gets quiet one by one in the room.

Because no one else is moving I push myself forward to the counter.

"Well, well", the man behind the counter greets me. "Do you want to put a bet as well, Miss Sadr'khor?"

The people keep staring at me. I know what they're thinking: That I'm the best to know the outcome of the fight. The following persons would go by me. My bet would influence the quotas. People who already put their bet would storm the betting office to demand their money back. A mass panic would break out. Humans would lose their houses, fire would break out. The Mars would completely fall to chaos.

"Ehm, any chance we can speak under four eyes?"

Disappointed the people look after me when the man leads me to a back room.

### Mars 2350 - Seldra steals the museum

I took some time to calculate everything in detail.

I could leave Primus out on Earth, to quickly get rid of the burden, but I could do better. In the modern star database quickly I found a fitting planet - beautiful, massive, with a high proportion of iron and most and for all completely uninhabited. Now I just needed a space ship that was able to take me there.

When I was back on Mars, my new home, according to plan, I visited the museum as usual, where the rigid Decepticons were exhibited. The security guys greeted me friendly and watched me attentive.

"Go home" I commanded an stepped into the inner core.

The security people looked at me with irritation. Of course they didn't listen to me. Not yet.

I opened a panel, behind that a control console was built in askew, like a random relict emerged by the fact that the museum was built of the wreckages of Lockdown's ship. But I knew Megatron's plan and induced the start sequence.

"Hey!" one of the rushing in security guys called when he heard the noise and I put him to sleep with the tip of my tail, before I took his weapon and started to drag him out.

The museum that in reality was a space ship slowly took off the ground. The guards started to panic, didn't know whether to attack me or to flee. I let the man before me wake up and aimed the weapon at him.

"Go out. This is now all mine."

He shortly looked at my weapon, considered whether to try to attack, so I shot him before his feet to make my intentions clear.

The other guards had retrieved an EMP. This time I was prepared.

When I felt the burning raising in my bones I took a syringe out of my bag and injected me a painkiller.

I shot at the EMP, dispersed it into pieces and called out to the guards: "Get away or die. I count to three."

No matter if they followed the order or not, I stepped back to the control console and made the ship ascend. The guards were smart enough to hit the road before we reached deadly heights. Then I lifted the outer hull before the ship smashed through the small dome, which had been built especially for the museum.

I had packed enough supplies to bridge the time in case of an EMP that my systems would need to come back online.

Then I sighed deeply to get my courage together and revived the four Decepticons.

I kneeled down before Megatron and made my request.

"I saw the Autobots on Earth."

"Why would I care?"

"Optimus made the Autobots slaves of the humans. Maybe you don't care, but I find that terrifying."

"They only got what they wanted and what they deserve. I will never allow that such thing happens to my Decepticons."

"That's why I revived you. You understand."

"Oho." He bended over me. "You're not actually joining me, do you?"

I ... I couldn't look at him. Deeply inside I felt that I always stood on his side. I had just denied. "The Allspark spoke to me. If I take him to this planet" - I sent him the data - "then he will leave my body and raise a new Cybertron. I want" - shortly I decided to act a bit more submissive and folded my begging hands - "please take me there. I'm too slow and too weak to get there on my own. And only you are worthy to reign over the new home of your ... our species.

Megatron lifted his index digit in a warning. "You will do whatever I order."

I swallowed. That was the wrong moment to disagree. And still we both knew where this would lead to, so I smiled ashamed. "That doesn't mean I will stop being annoying."

Also I requested him to protect me from bounty hunters.

He accepted with a mysterious smile.


	39. Bonus Material - Seldra Damage Compensation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just had some fun calculating how much Seldra is sued for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think you should do that for all villains. How much damage did Darth Vader cause? Or Voldemort? Maybe I'll have some fun calculating that for Megatron. It could be that one day I publish something where I need this, next year or something. ;)

  * Faking documents
  * Faking identity
  * Faking records
  * Traveling with faked documents  
1000 € https://www.juraforum.de/forum/t/hoehe-einer-geldstrafe.1103/
  * 10 h power outage on the Donnager: loss of earnings  
2000 garrison https://www.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/5p8dm9/spoiler_donnager_battle/ 87 € per day per person https://www.steuerklassen.com/gehalt/soldat-auf-zeit/ 2260.36/4.33/6  
= 174 000 €
  * power outage health consequences
  * Theft of a jolly-boat
  * destruction of a jolly-boat  
38m $ https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Corvette-class comparable to http://www.astronautix.com/s/shuttlec.html
  * Damage of property deposit, storage, tools  
100k € https://www.hausjournal.net/hallenbau-kosten
  * Destruction of a research satellite 157.5m € production https://www.raumfahrer.net/news/raumfahrt/27052013205108.shtml 14m $ transport to space  
https://www.wer-weiss-was.de/t/was-kostet-es-einen-satelliten-ins-all-zu-schiessen/9445082/6 (EDRS-C as reference)
  * Illegal entering
  * Illegal stay
  * moonlighting
  * Flood in the quarry
  * Death of a worker  
30k € https://rp-online.de/nrw/schmerzensgeld-nach-totschlag_aid-20873493
  * Espionage of research technology
  * Theft of 15 drones  
1500 € * 15 https://www.conrad.de/de/f/drohnen-in-der-landwirtschaft-1839270.html
  * Importing 5 alien battle robots to Mars and activating them
  * Aid to conquer and support the occupation
  * Leaving a loaded weapon unsupervised
  * Violation of usual customs, sodomy with alien items
  * Intention to feed a Baby to Megatron
  * Protoform kills a human  
30k € see above
  * Illegal show fight

let's say roughly 200 mio € or $


	40. Bonus Material - Writing Process

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My pitiful attempt to explain all writing strategies I used for writing.

I started to write down the fooling around with ideas in my mind, so several, independent stories emerged.

From these stories I took parts I liked the most and from which I thought that I could combine them well, from these I built the skeleton of the story.

Within these skeleton I let creativity flow and use different strategies. Sometimes there are key scenes in which something specific needs to happen, which I just write down, for instance the first interrogation of Seldra by Lopez. Mostly I have already seen the scene in my mind weeks or month ago and partly forgotten, maybe it doesn't seem that logical or fluid as at the point of its origin.

Sometimes independently from each other I write some scenes that just come to my mind, from which I might decide later on that they fit into the story, sometimes multiple versions of the same scene, this holds for the sections where Seldra wants to negotiate with Megatron and is thrown into the arena.

It might happen that I write a planned scene and new things happen, which I hadn't thought of before. The scene in which Seldra plays with the children and uses her tail as an alien emerged from the flow by surprise.

Sometimes during the day I get fragments of ideas, mostly pieces of dialog, which I write down and throw in, either into the dump or roughly to the place where the fragment might fit. When I have time I sort the fragments and subdivide them into scenes. The complete fourth part is made up of different ideas and plot fragments. It was a total chaos. I put the scenes into a dot graph with dependencies to each other, looked at the graph and added dependencies until the scenes roughly took a linear order and the graph that was wide spread at the beginning stretched in length. That way I got a basic order, although while working on them I still changed their order.

Sometimes fragments or scenes don't fit anymore, then I move them to the dump and sometimes I can use them at another position. When I created the graph the scene with the taking of a hostage had no consequences and was useless. Later I included it at an other position where it fit.

Sometimes while writing I note that things don't fit as I had originally planned. The story has grown so much, so I removed the sections about Earth, the return to Mars, the trip to Neo-Cybertron etc. completely. Maybe they find their use in a sequel. Also I realized that there is no logical reason for Megatron to take Seldra with him to the bounty hunters and on top allows her to fight with one of them, so I dismissed the entire chapter.

Barricade is completely irrelevant to the story - not counting some slap stick - and it was exhausting to consider him all the time, hence meanwhile I dismissed him.


End file.
